A tale of role player backstory for a villain named Bookworm
Like many of my adventures, they start out in a library or bookstore or bar with a reading section set aside. There I was in an old part of Columbus, Ohio, the bar I guess was actually in Reynoldsburg or a section of the town close to Columbus the bar. There has a reading section. And I was drinking and reading aged comic books from the 70s. Thus I had just finished a comic and was reading the old advertisement. I enjoyed reading the advertisement in the old colors of the comic section Sea Monkeys turning the page.
An advert about the civil war soldiers, tiny ones, 150 packages with bridges, and three cannons. I had not seen the advert for some years. Next to the advertisement was an odd advert. Mr. Lee’s school of superhero training. The advertisement showed a man being splashed by water from what looked to be a teapot.
Reading more out of curiosity, the ad states to survive boiling water, sharp steel stabs, and falling into water at high heights. Subsequently, a mailing address in California and phone number at the bottom of the page. An old circle mark from a pen around the advert. Below the advertisement are the words I wish this to be true.
For the fun of it, I called thinking 40 years had passed, maybe the school had too. A person answered, “Mr. Lee’s school of superhero training.” Wondering more than anything, I asked how much was the school and if the school was still in California? The answer depends on the stay and yes, only one in California.
I asked about the classes and timeframe getting more interested in the training than I ought to at an old reading bar. The courses were specifically short-term and one could take usual a few a day or if there was a desire, a person could choose a polyphasic sleep course three weeks prior to taking a two-week course and potential take five courses within a two-week timeframe. The idea intrigued me greatly. I asked for a course catalog. There was a pause on the phone. How certain are you about taking the courses was the question with an implied the lady did not want to waste postage on a want to be a superhero? I answered I had gone through an accident and had two months of vacation saved up. I could hear the smirk at the other end of the line. She took my mailing address.
I received the catalog three weeks later. I had forgotten so when I opened the large-size envelope, the catalog surprised me. The courses wild and amazing.
Memory improvement which I was reading about in the library, there was a teacher who had won some recollection award of memorizing pi to 3,000 places. The first course on the catalog was on how to withstand electricity shock the teacher having supposed taken in 30 times the amount of electricity that kills a man. Another on polyphasic sleep training to allow a person to sleep only four hours a day with a section of the program allowed to be home-schooled. More mind courses on studying to be a human calculator or memorize piano music by listening to the music once. Courses on climbing walls and acrobatics called the human spider course which says they will introduce a special trainer who will show how to mimic spider-silk and climb buildings like Spiderman. Swordsmanship hand-eye coordination course allowing a person to cut either a bullet shot at them or allowing a person to throw a fruit with a hand using the same hand to cut the fruit in half before the fruit reached the ground or sword swallowing. I took the catalog to work the next day.
Between conference calls listening to program build ups and software development, I browse the catalog circling the courses of most interest. I selected the polyphasic sleep training, figuring for two months I could work-out lose weight, and sleep while taking on an additional five courses all within a two-week vacation period. I fill out my vacation request form and send it into headquarters. In two or three days I get a response approved.
Next, I fill out a credit card application. The courses run a thousand dollars per week plus room and board, along with the flight I figure I will spend nine thousand to learn some very useful skill sets. Skills that I gained over a brief time. I pay my first thousand for the polyphasic sleep course. Expecting something different I receive something which not disappointing but not what I expected. A daily routine with workout instructions for the other four courses, which I applied for, including some additional daily exercises with a circle around the word most useful to become a superhero.
The polyphasic sleep course breaks the day into six-hour time tables. And one hour to nap or sleep and five hours to stay awake and do something creative or bored to death in the middle of the night when there is nothing to do. The first few days were exciting because I used the whole workout delivered. I went to the library and checked super memory books on how to improve my mind as a supplemental course book suggested. I signed up for a seven-day free trial at the local gym that is opened 24 hours a day. There I took up weightlifting and a spin class to increase my flexibility. During the workday was the difficulty because of my work schedule requiring 9 to 11 hours a day I had to take a lunch nap, which required me to stay even later at work to show that I spent my time at work. The problem of being honest is doing the work. For two weeks prior to the vacation, I learned memory, went from 21 percent body fat down to 11 percent. I gained flexibility to do forward rolls, backward rolls, and learned to stand on my hands for 15 minutes. Those two weeks were not bad in a thousand-dollar investment.
I choose three other courses along with memory and sleep. They are sniper lessons, the ability to hit a target 1,000 meters away within a week or your money back. Train your arms to supply a superpower blow like a tiger claw and hold your breath for 6 to 10 minutes to dive to 150 feet. I had always wanted to join the military being asthma, and allergies had removed that career path, so I thought that learning to shoot while on vacation would be worthwhile. The tiger claw description and picture of Bruce Lee striking a brick with an open hand claw were enough to make me want to be fearsome. The breathing technique described about the diving course made sense to me, and I hoped would allow me to run again because of all the pollen in the air my breathing was hard on a normal day.
For the sniper program, I started right away on eye coordination because of wearing glasses. I learned the basic standing or offhand position. You have seen the movies where the good or bad-guy turns so that their left side is facing their target. Where to place the feet is important, like left foot to the right of the target, having both feet about shoulder length apart. I learned the hard way to bring the rifle up to your face instead of bending your head down or your face ends up with a rash burn on your ear. Snug the rifle to your shoulder while you breathe in, brace the rifle and pull the trigger. All this I learned at Bob’s Alley gun shop lesson for those who want to buy an AK-15. Six lessons during my extra five hours two weeks prior to going on my vacation. Luck had me stumble upon a coupon which allowed me in for free. The other four main firing positions: kneeling, prone, sitting, and squatting. I was going to learn on my vacation.
The tiger style kung fu punch required me to start right away by doing pushups. Then strengthening my fingers by removing one finger at a time until I could do 1,000 push up normal and 100 three finger push ups. Since I started right away I also learned that there are quite a few techniques to memorize 23 stances, 17 blocks, and 15 punches. Again being cheap I signed up for five weeks of free classes at several studios and took the classes using my added memory, I learned all 23 stances, most of the blocks and the 15 punches without being able to break a brick. I also learned that a tiger punch was more of a facial palm heel racking with the fingernail punch, not a brick breaking punch. The humor of a comic book drawing bringing me into the realization that the world lies often.
For the diving the 24 hour gym there was a pool. However, I learned that the quickest way to being able to hold your breath longer was to lose weight. I went from 21 percent body fat down to 11 percent just adding situps and lunges to strengthen my stomach muscles. I started out on day one, being only able to hold my breath for 20 seconds. I figured by adding practice time and training, I could hold longer. The pushups, situps, and lunges with reduced body fat and practicing got me to hold my breath to five minutes prior to getting on my plane for my vacation.
During this sleep training change, memory workout, and adventures with kung fu, night gyms, and swimming, my mind improved on working as a scheduler. I could remember dates better and conversations better cutting down on a lot of recollection and rework of other people’s indecisions during reporting periods.
Day of my flight was exciting. However, there was a complication I got called into work. Working on the Orion program was fun. Meeting people that were building the future spacecraft to go to the asteroid belt intense. The program continued to have problems both and technical. The technical issue was an engineer whose quality inspection of safety to the parachute system cost an additional fifty-five million dollars to show that the mathematics of her probability would never come true.
On one of the many teleconferences that I had to listen into the inspector started yelling and screaming that math proves nothing.
Myself, I was curious enough to open the document, which was a probability statement. The charges to fire the parachute had to malfunction than the door would have to hit the parachute line not once, but eight times. The end summary was a one in 32 million chance all eight charges would fail at once hitting the eight lines attaching the parachute causing a fatality. Then the math simple enough for me to understand. So I interrupted the teleconference being only an analyst person new and tired of hearing a woman screaming about a probability. My question pretty simple. Which part of the math statement in the equation did she not agree with. Silence on the phone. She did not reply. Her comment after a time was to ask who asked and what right did I have to ask it. I responded to who I was and in silence. Someone was laughing; I think they thought they were on mute. The woman just was silent. The meeting continued in a different direction.
Since I had to present on my information at the end of the meeting, I was quick and precession on detail on my topic. The meeting ended, and I stayed online to finish the minutes. I had not cut off the conference call when I heard two of the NASA team members talk.
Anyone on? I tried to get my mute button off, but the headset and paperwork on my desk got in my way. The tone - laughter “Well, that was an unexpected meeting,” said a person. “Yes, I thought (name of the woman) was going to explode,” said the other. “Who is Clinton?” I was not sure which asked the question. “He took over for Shirley.” “Well, he is trying to do his job and keep the program on schedule.”
“Yes, I wonder if no one has told him we are punting the program until 2021.” “What? Why?” “Unofficially technical problems. The entire program is going to be oil canned for two or three years. After that I will bring it back. By that time, the government will announce that aliens have contacted them.”
This conversation took place so fast that by the time I got the mute button off, that was what I had heard. “Forgive, me,” I said with that the conference call talkers hung up. I finished my notes from the meeting and sent them out and checked out.
I hurried to the airport. Arriving in California via route of Utah, I introduced myself to a lady that boarded there in Utah. Her name, believe it or not, was Pink. She was not wearing anything Pink in fact she was very Gothic all in black. She was interested in me. Looking back, I guess losing weight and having muscles does pay-off. But at the time I was more into listening to her talk. She had a voice that could melt your heart. She was going to California for training and, if I understood correctly, a singing career.
We both got off the plane, and it surprised me to see her trying to catch a cab outside. I was going to stay at a youth hostel and needed a ride as well. I asked where she was going, only to discover we were going to the same location.
We caught a ride together it was Sunday late, having been on a plane eleven hours and worked four hours that day I tired. The hostel was nice bunk beds and community shower. I locked my stuff up in the locker provided put on shorts and went to shower. Not seeing a man or woman sign just seeing shower signs, I went in a got ready for a shower. Surprise when Pink waked in the buff. At least they did not shave her from the eyebrows down. She had hairy legs, and underarms she pretended to cover up. My adulthood is what adulthood does when seeing beauty. She said something like looking for a shower to shave. I turned around, trying not to ogle her anymore than I had already done.
She laughed, which like music to my ears. “Silly boy,” and out she went to another shower. Instead of a relaxing warm shower that night, I was freezing cold. Though parts of me stood out.
That night memory lessons, pushups, sit-ups, and leg curls got me to sleep well for my hour. During the dead of night while sleeping, I felt a warm embrace. Pink whispered something like I was cold. Thinking of the cold shower, I could agree with her. But her embrace warm, and we slept the hour away. Getting up, she was already moving, too. I had to ask her if she needed more sleep. She laughed again at that wonderful sound. Now she was going to Mr. Lee training to in the morning. Surprised, I asked what classes.
She was going for breathing training to help her sing, and two other classes which, as I recall, were not on the list. I asked how she got into the two and her statement was evasive.
Arriving at Mr. Lee’s training school was a let down. The building is nondescriptive.
Entering with Pink, I give my forms to Ms. Olive. She looked it over and gave me a box to put my stuff in. Then handed me a suit showing a dressing room. Pink just went some place.
Coming out in the suit, a guy introducing himself as Jim met me. He was to be my shooting instructor. He let me know he was a former Marine sniper who had gone through a lot of additional marksmanship training. The class had me and three ladies. The instructor started out with the standing position. Stating that the position is the hardest, and the rest required less concentration because of balance. Somehow I had missed that part at Bob’s gun shop. In the first position standing, I nailed the target at the starting distance. Then the next five distances. It impressed Jim. At the longest distance, I hit the target again. Laughing Jim said I was a natural and to sit out while the ladies did their practice run.
Linda, a fitness instructor real good. However, she missed the target after the third distance. She swore like a person with personal issues. Jill, with her dear eyes, did not even hit the first target. Jenny, a soldier, was out to prove something did the first five targets, only missing the last one but getting the corner of the target paper from the farthest distance.
That was my first class. Jim took me aside and said I should pay splits instead of for a full class. Not understanding, he said that my natural ability would waste if I spent the entire class with sniper training and that I should try to get into another class but only have to pay for one. That was my first five hours.
Sleeping on the floor, I awoke by Jill. I am not sure why women were coming onto me. But she comfortable so I embraced her for my hour nap and sleep like a baby.
Getting up, we both did exercises together in silence. She went to her next class, which I believe was how to be a human spider, and I went to my class on how to throw a punch like a tiger.
The class instructor was a lady. She introduced herself as Ms. Claw. There were three of us. The two guys, Bob and Robert, snickered at Ms. Claw. Myself, I was a bit intimidated because she looked like a supermodel with muscles. She asked each of us about our training and background while looking over our paperwork. Bob had a long list of belts and studies. Robert was a boxer. I felt like the newbie that I was out of place. She instructed Bob to throw a punch Tiger style open palm at a board. His fingers clawed the board, making long scratches. Ms. Claw asked Robert to do the same. Instead of an open palm, he broke the board with his fingernails. My turn and all I could do was the tiger open palm punch, which left nothing on the board. She then instructed us on a personalized unique style of punch and said to throw a thousand punches at a punching manikin. After which they gave each of us an extra set of sit-ups, push ups and to run a couple of miles. Not having run anytime in my life since high school, I asked about timing. She said just run it to get your muscles to work.
After all that, I went for my nap. Bob and Robert went out to the club. Again I found myself awaken for a moment by Jill. Her dear eyes made me wonder. I was about to talk but she just closed her eyes and slept, as did I.
The third class was on memory. I entered and surprised. There was me and Pink in the room. She was silent. The instructor walked in. Introduced himself as Mr. Wizard and asks questions on what techniques we used. I had used a short version of remember four to six items in a roll. While Pink explained she was using a memory palace to story her thoughts. Mr. Wizard impressed with Pink. She had memorized almost every top 10 songs from country to rock for the past 20 years. He asked me why I did not use the memory palace technique as well. I explained I did not have a home that I could recall where to put everything. He provided me with a question about where I liked to eat or favorite fast food place. He then instructed me to use that place to store my ideas or a library. Being more open to a library, I used one that I knew from heart as a child. Pink did not speak to me through the class. At the end of the class, Mr. Wizard gave me a book and informed me to memorize it by tomorrow. And with that, the class was over and time for me to nap.
I went to nap on the floor. This time was a bit more awkward. I awoke to find Jill embracing me with Pink holding me like a love pillow. But I said nothing, just sleeping between the warmth.
Getting up, I did my regular sit-ups and push ups. The ladies got up and went elsewhere.
Last class was holding my breath. I entered and Pink was there. She was stretching splits backside facing me. She smiled, looking upside down at me. The coach, a world class swimmer from the Olympics Ms. Green introduced to hold a brick and try to stay down there as long as you can was the statement. I jumped in with the brick. Five or seven minutes later, I awoke with Pink breathing into my mouth. I think she knew I was okay because she used her tongue. The class was a bit more interesting after that Ms. Green required me to lose another two percent body fat and do extra pushups to build up my chest. Pink seemed more interested in looking cute.
After the class I said thank you so much and offered to pay for a drink. Pink accepted.
Pink loves rum and well so do I. We drink and tell stories of fun, love, and we get to good friends. The timer rings on my watch, time to go to sleep. We walk back to the hostel. This time I did not even think. I just curled up with her and slept like I was a teddy bear in a little girl’s arms. I get up with the clock ding and start push ups. Pink gets up and takes a shower. Somewhere along the while Jill has came in and hugged, spooned me the hour away. She just smiled and slept a bit more.
They informed me getting back to the sniper class I that my target hits had gotten me a chance to switch to another class if I hit everything that day. I could still stay if I wanted, but the decision was I excelled good as is. I hit the targets. Then I got surprised and well, I wanted to try the cyborg build class to see what I could do for my leg which was missing. Walking into the class, there was no one there but an instructor who did not introduce himself. Just asked what did I want. I asked for help with my prosthesis. They then asked me to sit and watch a welding and molding video. Exciting I could build a model with a 3D printer of my leg replacement with springs and shocks which could allow me to run faster than I could in high school when I had my foot. By the end of class I was excited to have a rough model of a leg that with springs and shocks would allow me to run. I had not run in years because of the pain and effort it took to balance. I went to sleep with Pink and Jill with a smile on my lips. For whatever reason, Pink and Jill both kissed me. I happy and well other parts of me showed that.
Getting up I went to kung fu class. Ms. Claw instructed on a new technique and requested all of us to add a 1,000 punches within the class time. She meant to increase our speed by requiring the punches within that class time. I tore a fingernail off and did the additional punches. My tiger claw I could now scratch the board a quarter of an inch and break a brick with a punch that I had learned.
Sleeping Pink was not there, but Jill was. This time she was more active because she wanted something or was moody. Her hands brushed me in places and held me in an embrace that was strong and wild.
Getting up, I did my exercises while Jill stared and smiled.
Going to memory class Mr. Wizard had us memorize Pi to 300 places, and the first couple of pages of the dictionary using the palace technique. I was having difficulty but could pull off the answers to most of the questions on the words asked and got to 212 place of pi before flubbing up.
Going to sleep in the hostel, only Pink found me there and hugged me for that hour. She was tired.
Getting up going together to the breathing lesson, she spoke. “Are you interested in me,” she asked. My response was more of a way of realization. “Yes” She just smiled and asked, “What about Jill?” “Yes” Her smile got even bigger. Breathing class this time was different. They paired me with Pink and the instructor Ms. Green said to do deep breathing while kissing. This was something new, but the thrill was there and Pink was into it. I think I again passed out but awoken by Pink’s tongue.
Getting up, I exercise and go to my classes. I check my phone which I had turned off. The first 49 messages were about a problem and that I should cut my vacation short and get back there fast. The 50th was they fired me call. Unexpected.
That day, to some relief, was close to my last day. But there was something new. Mr. Lee training school was holding a job fair. Being without a job, I went. Now this was different. There was a white, gray, and black line. Choose one and happy. Looking down the path of each, I noticed my old company’s logo on the white path so I decided not to go that way. I could see nothing on the gray path and well, black was more like my mood, anyway.
Going black I did not realize because the sign covered that the significance but that would change my life forever.
I put my resume in with a short term contract to guard a library of historical villain books. The owner showed for whatever purpose that he owned the books and afraid of people coming into steal them. Loving books, I asked during the interview if I could read some of them and the interviewee just stared like I was the first person to ask that of him. Anyway my first bad guy job was to guard a library of books.
I got there at the appointed time and assigned to walk a catwalk with shelves upon shelves of ancient looking books. The titles were in French, Italian, German, and a few in English, which were rather scientific the life and death of such-and-such. How to turn ore into metal, etc.
They centered the vast collection on the shelves in a reading room which I got to pass every 30 minutes. There was a table with an enormous book guarded by what I was told do not touch booby traps, etc. I watched night after night and saw that the whole booby trap was a plate sensor which was rigged to a blow gun.
I got to speak with the owner of the book a few times more than the other three guards. I asked if I could borrow one of his books titled how to build a spacecraft by Nicola Tesla. The owner whose name shall remain anonymous agreed upon the condition that I write a summary of the book. Since he was allowing me the use of the book, I agreed. The book wonderful, full of explanations and ideas that would have been useful at my old job, but now I had the leisure to read while staying up. My memory courses were useful in that I even remembered some of the math and chemistry described once when written about later in greater detail.
Working nights and reading days I just got a flat with Jill and Pink which I used as a storage place. When I had time off, Jill and Pink used me as a sleep pillow. The owner of the library allowed me to check out books after working there for four months and providing him with summary reports.
One night at home I found a third lady had groped me and was hugging me. She introduced herself and started talking about my employer as if he was bad. I took a picture of her and went to work. At work I showed the owner her picture. He knew her and called the other two guards together. They had seen her, too. Because of their lack of communication, they reassigned. I later learned the owner let go those two because of this discovery.
Anyway I kept on reading and summarizing and got involved with a plot to hide the read book and show a false book which if followed would cost whoever stole the book more money because of a chemistry of O2 a single O misplaced in the formula making the whole formula unstable and deadly.
The night of the attack took place. The entire night was normal until the attack. One moment paying attention to the shadows and doing a tiger exercise in which I hit intruder without realizing she was there. My tiger claw sent her sprawling. She somersaulted correctly. But then the training Mr. Lee class had provided. She was a professional, for two knives flashed towards me. One stuck me in the chest, a bulletproof vest took the impact while the other knife I blocked with my elbow guard. She was up and moving towards the book. Not sure if the trap had fixed or not and trying to less damage to the books on the shelves, I tried to stun her with a throwing ball which I had been practicing with at Mr. Lee training center.
I threw the impact was a deadlier than I expected, shattering her face. She went down for the count. By this time, the owner had shown up with a few more backups. Seeing her, he examined her. Looking at me, he said she was dead.
This was my first time killing anything. All my life I had read and been nice now to become a killer over a book.
I called the authorities, the police took my statement, and the owner provided a video recording of the whole action fight. My hitting her by accident made me look like I could see through the dark. For she was not seeable and upon examination I discovered her outfit to be fitted with cameras mirroring her surroundings. Luck was with me. Getting done with the police and work shift, I went home. Luck is a fickle friend.