INTERVIEWS 1.5-1.7 (Patreon)

As with INTERVIEWS 1.1-1.4 these are collected and updated from posts I made years ago.

All except one.

The story INTERVIEWS 1.5 has never been published before today. I kept wanting to, but I could never get it quite right.

Now, I think I have. So it's presented here for the first time, along with 1.6 and 1.7.

INTERVIEWS 1.5

"Thanks to everyone just now joining us. Today we're interviewing the hero..."

"Please, don't call me that. Firemen are heroes. Good teachers, the best nurses, parents that put their children's welfare above their own. Heck, I'll go so far as to say a few of the cape-and-cowl set really are heroes. But not me."

"Fair enough. What would you call yourself, then, if not a hero?"

"A comatose weirdo."

"Yes, that's consistent with your previous rare public statements. We'll get to that, but first, for those of you just joining us, we are interviewing Sleepwalker, who is acknowledged as an expert on the occult by a number of agencies and groups, including STEEL, the Masked Alliance, the Phoenix Project... "

"Yeah, yeah, all the underwear-on-the-outside associations buy my B.S. Look, I'm doing this interview because I lost a bet, but if you keep blowing smoke I'm just gonna ditch."

"We didn't mean to irritate you, certainly. And you've already given us a lot to delve into, so let's get to it. Who did you lose the bet to that caused this interview to happen?"

"What? Oh, ha. Sure, I brought it up, didn't I? Well, it was Troubleshooter, of the Masked Alliance. A right prick, by the way. And before you ask, we were betting on whether or not anchoring a pishogue--ANY pishogue--to one of his guns would make it more effective against the Bhooghal Mahn demons. So I anchored a piss-ant cleaning spell to the gun he calls Bertha, and bedamned if it didn't work better. Troubleshooter claimed her learned that from the Prisons & Predaceans game. Or was it Wyrms & Warlords? Then he went off on a rant about the Secret Masters of Gaming, and how the SMoG snuck lifesaving information in geek media. Anyway. The pishogue worked, so here I am."

"Okay, if we have time, we'll want to circle back to a lot of that, but you answered the question so let's move on for now. While you have done your best to keep a low profile, the fact is you are apparently an expert in the occult and a manipulator of what is commonly called magic. You claim not to believe in magic. How to you reconcile these positions?"

"You already know how."

"We believe we do, but you're here now. We'd rather hear your version of your position, if you're comfortable with that." 

"Oh, fine. Look all of this -- magic, masked heroes, aliens... all of it is clearly B.S. None of it makes sense, and everyone admits that most of it used to be 'secret,' so no one knew about it. And you know what happened just before all the REALLY weird stuff started? I got hit by a bus, and put into a coma for 28 days. And when I wake up, suddenly there's a fox in my hospital room, only it has pools of black for eyes, and it tells me it's a fylgja, and now my destiny is different, and it can teach me things. So, now I'm the fuckin' chosen one, and I get magic powers? I mean, how much Isekai did I watch before the bus got me?! Answer: enough to know wish fulfillment when I see it.

"So, clearly I am still in a coma, and this is the last neurons of my brain trying to keep me happy as I die. And as if being the chosen one isn't proof enough this isn't reality, Bodil, that's the fylgja's name by the way, Bodil, she has another form. And, who'd have thunk it, it's that of a beautiful woman! Oh, wow, I wonder what genius made a fox spirt be foxy?

"And everythin' since then, is just my brain putting together elements from things I love, even if I mostly consciously forgot them, to create a ongoing fantasy continuity in my head. No, none of this is real. I'm in a coma, and this is just me walking through my own dying dreams."

"Hence 'Sleepwalker'?"

"You think?! Although I didn't actually come up with that. Doctor Athens did, when she tried to figure out what pantheon I served, or something like that. Of course, since Doc Athens doesn't actually exist, and this is all in my head, I DID come up with it. Just indirectly."

"And what did Dr. Athens say about your theory?"

"She said is wasn't a theory. A theory can be tested, proven or disproven. This, she said, was just putting Descartes before the horse. Rather than go with 'I think therefore I am,' she said, I'd invented 'I don't think so, so you all aren't."

"But she cleared you to work with groups such as the Masked Alliance?"

"Work with, yes. Be a member of, no. There's some sort of rule against members who are, in the Alliance's best estimate, suffering a total delusion. So I can pitch in with occult things, but not join. Not that I'd want to. Do you have idea idea how much paperwork there is to join that capes-and-crimefighting club?"

"We actually did an Emmy-winning special on it in 1992. 'Forms and Uniforms'."

"Of COURSE you did."

"But you actually believe everything in the world is just a figment of your imagination?"

"Yep. Except when my feet mysterious get cold for no reason, which I presume means my comatose body's toes aren't under the blanket. But, yeah, everything else is just my twisted, dying delusion."

"So... why risk your life to help others? While details are always sparse and confused, it's clear that over the years you've faced down--both alone and with others--things that most people wouldn't even want to be in the same room as. You've been burned, bitten, had most of the bones in your body broken... even though you think this is a phantasm, you feel pain, yes?"

"Oh yes! All too well."

"So why risk pain, a sensation that you really experience even if none of the world is real, when you could just use your 'chosen one' powers to vacation in the Bahamas?"

"That's a GREAT question. It forces me to justify my behavior given my conclusions without directly challenging them. You're not related to Dr. Athens perchance, are you?"

"We're honored to even be compared to her."

"To borrow your lingo, that's NOT a denial! But, whatever. I'll go down the Three Reasons Sleepwalker Gives Shit.

"One - Helping people IS my power fantasy. Yes, feeling a Yusothgis Gut Worm begin to snack on you sucks. But knowing I could maybe help, even in a fictional setting, and I didn't? That sucks worse.

Second, all of this may not be JUST a fantasy in my head. It could be my subconscious mind trying to process my fight to live, so the struggle and pain may be real sensations like I think my cold feet are. Or maybe I already died, and this is limbo, and my soul is being tested. Whatever the case, I don't like the idea of just assuming there'd be no consequences to being a jerk on a cosmic scale.

Third... what if... Look, what if I'm wrong? Sure, I'm sure about this all being a dream. Right up until a Pale Spawn of KRTIACTH is about to eat three innocent kids... and then I can't risk it. The hubris it would take to decide I'm sure they aren't real, and the screams and crunching noises are all in my head?

"Look, man, I'm a dick. But I'm not THAT big of a dick."

INTERVIEWS 1.6

“So… Sudden-Oven-Man?”

“I prefer James.”

“Really? Is that your actual name?”

“It is, amusingly enough! When your first name is James, letting that secret out doesn’t actually give the shadowy conspiracy of anti-appliance villains a lot of help tracking your home or work address.”

“You have a, ah, ‘normal’ job?”

“I do, though I’d prefer not to go into it. It’s boring. Tedious, even. But if I told you I was a pizza delivery man, which I’m not by the way that’s just a hypothetical, but that might actually put other ‘Jameses’ who deliver pizza in danger. In case the League of Appliance Repairman Assassins ever went on a rampage.”

“You don’t seem to take this very seriously.”

“I get called ‘Sudden-Oven-Man’ on national television. How seriously should I take it?”

“So if you don’t like the name, how did you get it?”

“I strongly suspect it’s related to my ability to spontaneously manifest 40-inch O’Keefe & Merritt ovens anywhere within a few hundred feet of myself. It’s a nice model. Four burners, chrome griddle, oven on the right side, ‘Grillevator’ broiler on the left. It even has side salt & pepper shakers.”

“We mean, who chose that exact name, which is so closely associated with you, and why didn’t you fight against it if you dislike it?”

“I’m pretty sure the Chicago Comet stuck me with that nom de masque first, when I got involved in the Battle of Bronzeville. As for why I haven’t fought it… what’s the point? I summon ovens. Suddenly. What am I going to come up with that’ll replace ‘Sudden-Oven-Man’ in people’s heads? If the ovens could produce fire I might go with ‘Grillevator,’ just because I like the sound of it, but it’s not like they come connected to gas lines.”

“Why DID you get involved in the Battle of Bronzeville? Over the years it’s become very clear you’re not motivated to be a full-time hero. Sometimes years go by without you doing anything with your powers.”

“I got involved because people were dying, and the heroes on-scene were overwhelmed. We all thought Gargoyle was dead, Red Tail was having to hold the line at Sunset on his own and Hexen started yelling near a shop where I was that we had to evacuate. She turned to face down a wave of razorlings to give us time to flee.. and I just didn’t see how she could do it. Not alone. A cop ran up next to her and started firing his pistol, and I figured I had to do my part. So I began dropping ovens on them.”

“How do you do that?”

“Gravity, mostly.”

“We mean, how does your power work? Where does it come from? Why… why ovens?”

"Actually it’s not just ovens. I can also summon a small stretch of tile floor, a gust of warm air, a cast-iron cooking tray, and some wonderful oatcakes. They just don’t come in as handy.”

“Do you know the origin of your power?”

“My grandfather was a Boomer Baby. No, I won’t say if you know him. My mother didn’t have any powers we ever noticed. And I summon ovens. Pretty clearly it’s a skip-a-generation thing. After Bronzeville, Professor Phoenix checked me out. He says the oven, and the other things I can summon, are quantum projections. He suspects when the Big Boom hit in New York, one of the things it destroyed was a kitchen that had all the items I can now create, as hiccups in the space/time continuum.”

“Are their any limits to your, er… oven-summoning powers?”

“Many. The ovens don’t last long, about six hours on average, though if they get hit by high-energy states they sometimes go ‘piff.’ They are all the exact same oven, or copies of it. I’ve studied it pretty closely. There’s a scratch on the chrome on the left-hand side, and it’s not completely even on a level floor. It has momentum relative to the most influential gravitational field it’s being summoned within, which is a fancy way of saying it always appears stationary compared to the planet. I can’t ‘throw’ ovens, just drop them or set them on the ground. But it’s pretty heavy, so both those things work pretty well. The back is tougher than the front, weirdly, and I have learned to summon it in new orientations, so I can drop it point-first on someone. The oatcakes too, for that matter. And I have a maximum range of less than 1,000 feet, though Gargoyle won’t let me say exactly how far.”

“Do you interact with Gargoyle often?”

“Weirdly, yeah, I do. He arranges for training for me, though I’m never doing enough hours in a week to satisfy him. But I’m not really a hero. I don’t want to be. I help where I can or must, but I have no interest in forming ‘Kitchen Appliances for Justice,’ or anything. You said sometimes there are years I don’t do anything with my powers, but that’s not really true. My main power is humanity, just like everyone else. I pay my taxes, love my family, volunteer at a soup kitchen. Overall, I think those do more good than creating sudden ovens in the name of liberty. And, of course, there’s the battle babysitting.”

“We’re sorry, what?”

“Well, sometimes its ‘dimensional dog sitting,’ or ‘quantum anomaly sitting.’ That’s actually the main way my powers are used, which is to say to not use them but be able to if things go wrong. When one of Gargoyle’s allies needs someone to keep an eye on something, generally something weird, but they don’t think it’s important enough for a real hero to be sidelined doing it, they call me. I’m back-up. It’s a lot less dangerous than actual hero work, though I did once have to drop 47 ovens on a Fanashi Warcaster to protect a baby mammoth.”

“Does, does that sort of thing come up often?”

“For me it’s four or five times a year, on average. Some other folks in the back-up business have gigs almost every week. More during alien invasions and demonic outbreaks. I mean, look, we live in a world where people can fly by force of will. Mythic objects are walking around as people. Super-science allows zero-point rods to rewrite reality. Psychics can travel through time with the power of their bald minds. People wear onesies to fight crime. That’s the top level of weird. But there are lots of levels between that and spoon-bending, and for a bunch of us, that’s where we can contribute the most.”

“So you’re saying there are a lot of people doing… back-up?”

“Oh, yeah. More than full-time heroes. A lot of retired heroes in their 70s and 80s who don’t happen to still look 22. Apprentice Supreme Spellcasters. Younger sibling of kid sidekicks who can’t go into the field yet. And folks like me, weirdos with bizarre powers that are only sort of useful. We often call ourselves the Oddities. Sometimes we get together for Bar-B-Ques.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not this time, no. It’s a messed up world. I summon ovens for justice. None of that should get in the way of having a good time with friends.”

INTERVIEWS 1.7

“We are here now in the Lost Lands of Gondwalla with the Wyrm, for an interview that was arranged through intermediaries. Thank you for inviting us.”

“You are welcome, thank you for agreeing to this. It’s surprising how many reporters don’t.”

“You DO have a reputation as a criminal, murderer, and terrorist.”

“All true, but there are no examples of me violating my word when given. Wealth and power are useless without a social system to utilize them, and those systems generally operate best with a level of demonstrated trustworthiness.”

“Let’s start with this. ‘The Wyrm.’ Why that name?

“At its core, Wyrm is another word for serpent. In the Bible, which is among my favorite bits of mythology, the serpent proves that God is keeping secrets from mankind, and thus is making man vulnerable. If God had told Adam and Eve why they should avoid the Tree of Knowledge, what it would do to them, they could have made a rational choice. Instead, like abstinence-only sex education, God depends on total obedience to be enough to protect those less developed, less educated, than himself. I am a creature of knowledge, and planning, and open information. I am the Wyrm.

“The word ‘wyrm’ has also come to mean dragon in many cases, of course. Dragons are classically creatures of power and wealth. Who wouldn’t want to be compared to such a creature?”

“It’s been suggested you took the name because when cut in half, there end up being two of you.”

“Ugh. That’s been suggested by one specific idiot, and it’s a gross simplification. It is true that I react to overloads of force, kinetic force included, by forming an additional temporary physical vessel. I’m a third-generation Boomer. That is not the same as ‘being cut in half,’ which if it actually happened to my core body would leave me as dead as anyone else.”

“Very well, we’ll get back to the owner of that quote in a bit. Before that, we must confess to surprise that you agreed to an interview. Why do it?”

“Why? Many reasons, one of which is because the league of idiots who wish to ‘bring me to justice’ have done more damage to the public, and cost them more money, then I ever have, and I wanted an opportunity to declare I’m not responsible for their excesses or obsessions. And here there’s no risk to me, personally. Gondwana is a sovereign nation that does not recognize the warrants or extradition requests of other nations, and I am held in high regard by the Shaman Supreme of this land. Indeed, it is at my request you were granted safe passage.”

“Which we appreciate, though it may impact the reception of this interview. Most people doubt that Gondwana, or its Shaman Supreme, even exist.”

“Most people can’t grasp the gambler’s fallacy, and think they are free of cognitive bias, which is itself a bias. I stopped worrying about what ‘most people’ think before I performed my first operation.”

“Indeed. And you call them ‘operations’ instead of ‘crimes.’ Why is that? Do you not think of your acts as criminal?”

“Oh no, they are absolutely criminal. I’m not fooling myself about anything in that regard. I just don’t CARE that they are crimes, for the same reason I do not care about the opinions of others. My own Zen requires only that I look to care for myself to the best of my ability, and I often discover that my best interests are served by arranging for me to benefit at the detriment of others. If I were less able, I’d likely think that obeying the artificial constructs of law and morality western society clings to would serve me better.

“No, I only call them operations because that is the fact that’s relevant. A crime can be simple, complex, heinous, or petty. None of that tells you anything about how to be successful in committing it. An operation is, by its nature, a delicate matter requiring planning and skill. That’s the thing I never want myself, or my agents, to forget.”

“Interesting. It also seems, despite your apparent comfort here in Gondwalla, that a majority of your operations occur in Gulf City. Why is that?”

“That belief is a matter of confirmation bias. Actually, fewer than 40% of my total operations occur in Gulf City. However, because that place is plagued by idiots who have decided Ahab is a role model, and I am their Great White Whale, people remember things involving me in Gulf City longer than they remember other things. They also assume I am involved in mysterious Gulf City events when I’m not.”

“Care to give an example of an occurrence misattributed to you?”

“One? Certainly. I had nothing to do with the 2009 sea serpent attack on the city, or the looting that followed. Indeed, the people who launched the attack had nothing to do with the subsequent looting, that was mostly petty criminals and panicking local citizens.”

“And yet when that was reported as the Sea Wyrm War, you did nothing to correct the record?”

“Reported by whom? By members of my own personal Star Chamber, who seek to vilify and persecute me in everything they do, lead by ‘that idiot.’ These are people who are clearly unbalanced, but are given endless credibility despite their obvious mental illnesses.”

“The heroes sometimes known as your personal Star Chamber are a bit eccentric, it’s true, but are you serious in characterizing them as mentally ill?”

“That you, a serious reporter who I respect or I wouldn’t have bothered setting this up, feels the need to ask that question is proof of just how bad the cognitive dissonance is in America is. Let’s consider who these people are.

“Early Bird. I shouldn’t even have to explain how crazed you have to be to think calling yourself ‘Early Bird’ is a rational course of action. The man dresses in a feathered cape and cowl, and claims to be the world’s greatest detective. If that were the case, wouldn’t he have found a way to deal with least a FEW of his major foes? Yet year after year, we keep committing crimes and making profits. Believe me, paying dozens of mooks, building secret bases in abandoned amusement parks and old canneries, having custom helicopters made, and sponsoring the creation of new ray guns and chemical weapons takes vast quantities of money. If any of Early Bird’s major foes were being inconvenienced by his supposedly vast detective skills, we wouldn’t be able to afford these things. And in that regard my own efforts are quite modest—I pay for only those things I need to succeed at operations with a reasonable chance of bringing in significantly greater sums of money than they cost. I’m convinced some of Early Bird’s foes spend money just to mock him. I shudder to think how much Enigma spends on needless complexities just to confuse the Feathered Crime-Fighter, but Mr. Iddle is as crazy as Early Bird.

“Also, Early Bird keeps doing the same thing in hopes of different outcomes, the textbook definition of insanity. And what has the response to Early Bird been? Aside from some mocking Korean animated news reports, he’s hailed as a hero. Not to mention the copycats who have followed in his insanity: Ladybird, Early Warning, and the rest of the so-called Dawn Patrol. These people actually get up early, to fight crime. Do you know what percentage of crime occurs in the early daylight hours? I do, and it’s not much. They are all suffering mass dementia. Even the idea of the hero patrol is ridiculous – it’s virtually impossible for a few dozen people to cover enough ground in a major city to hope to randomly come across a crime. They’d be better served setting up community watches, rather than wondering around on their own or in groups of two.

“But at least Early Bird is seen as “eccentric,” as you noted. Many of the rest of my personal Star Chamber are worse. The Hook is at least as insane, but because he’s willing to kill people with an indestructible metal hook and his own wounds heal quickly, the public accepts him as some kind of serious vigilante. And who does this sadist spend time with? Bait. Not only is Hook and Bait a terrible motif, I happen to know Bait is 14. It’s bad enough that ANYONE thinks it’s a good idea to put a girl in a tunic, bare legs, and pixie shoes and send her out to fight crime, but her name is BAIT for goodness sake.

“The rest of the Chamber are no better. Jumping Jack truly is the world’s finest leaper, but I have no idea how that is supposed to qualify him to serve the public interest by violating laws on stalking, breaking and entering, and fraud. Karna? He believes he is possessed by the actual Karna from the Hindu epic Mahābhārata, and whether that is true or not he shoots people with a bow, hangs them off buildings and threatens to drop them as a form of inquisition, and swaps back and forth between razor-heads and a selection of technological arrows that are less-lethal ammunition. He’s clearly schizophrenic, likely suffering PTSD, and is a confirmed torturer. Miss Amazing? First, calling yourself that is a sign of megalomania. Second, she constantly creates some of the most spectacular technology anyone has ever seen for her crime-fighting efforts, and she owns a multibillion-dollar company, but nothing she has created ever actually improved the lives of any significant number of people. Poverty, crime rates, disease, all move along the same trends that have more to do with the availability of education and abortion (as increased abortion availability reduces crime rates 16-20 years later, in every case) than with anything Amazing Inc. releases. So… what she is really spending her time and money on, other than self-aggrandizing hobbies?

“But if these clearly-insane people say I, who has never been found in a single lie and has no connection to the sea, or giant monsters, was responsible for a sea serpent attack and the subsequent looting, no one even QUESTIONS that narrative.

“It makes me weep for humanity in general, and Gulf City in particular.”

“That’s… that’s an interesting point of view. We can’t help but note it seems fairly self-serving.”

“Your skepticism is appreciated, truly. You are a reporter, that’s your job. But what part of THEIR narratives aren’t self-serving?”

“We… don’t have a ready answer for that.”

“No, you don’t. I am a self-confessed criminal. I make no bones about it. But my so-called Star Chamber of Heroes is a true menace, and someone needs to hold them accountable.”

“And is that the true purpose of calling us here, for this interview?”

“What? Oh, no. Well, one purpose yes, of course. But secondary at most.”

“Then what was the primary purpose?”

“I knew one of those Star Chamber idiots would be unable to resist taking the opportunity to attempt to ‘bring me to justice,’ in contravention of international law. As we speak, Early Bird has a stealth Whirlybird violating Gondwalla airspace, with which he intends to kidnap me and bring me to the U.S. illegally.”

“How did he know the exact time and place of this meeting? He didn’t learn it from any leak in our organization, I assure…”

“No, of course not. Instead, Miss Amazing assisted him in hacking into every cell phone in the Greater Gulf City Metropolitan Area, and your branch office there forwarded the call to you when my agents originally contacted you. Those two ‘heroes’ have violated the privacy of five-and-a-half million people, and can now do whatever their own private morals allow with that data.

“But somehow, I am the great menace.

“In any case, now that they are angering the Shaman Supreme, my most important goal here is done. But this secondary operation has been successful as well. Because what I have said here will sit with you. You'll begin to wonder if you should see the world differently. That idea will twist, and slither, and eat its way into your brain.

“Like a wyrm.”

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