Bernice Teschmacher stared at the video editing bay in the Lair Legion Mansion, daunted by the task before her. She was a long way from home now, in more ways than one.
As an undergrad at the University of Washington in Seattle, Bernice had started Who Watches the Watchmen? Magazine with a photocopier and a Web site. As a civilian who possessed neither any superhuman powers nor any desire either to don a costume or to adopt a crimefighting alter ego, she was an outsider to the world of superheroes, who believed they deserved just as much critical journalistic examination as any other influential, unelected, exclusive societal class. She’d initially supported the idea of registering such unchecked and improbably powerful vigilantes, to make them at least as accountable to the public as any other law enforcement agents, until she realized the proposed implementation of such a system would allow for far greater governmental abuses of all citizens’ civil liberties, personal freedoms and human rights. So, she threw in her lot with the lesser of two evils, a stand that got her noticed by both sides.
When a galactic despot declared open war on Earth, Sir Mumphrey Wilton was appointed commander-in-chief of the combined military forces of every cooperating country on the planet, and because of the attention she’d attracted, Bernice found herself drafted as his embedded reporter and “living historian.” When Mnemosyne Media set about putting together a television documentary about the Lair Legion and its allies in combat, she was approached about serving as its narrator, and possibly taking part in its production.
The candid level of access that camera crews had been granted - on the front lines, during downtimes, behind closed doors and in interviews - was uncensored enough to earn even Bernice’s grudging respect, in spite of her stubborn, slightly snobbish preference for print, but it left her with literally countless hours of footage to sort through.
Bernice slumped back in her rolling office chair and pushed up her glasses to rub her bleary eyes. Random, scattershot audiovisual impressions of an ongoing crisis of cosmic proportions … soundbites of stress under fire, close-ups of choices made with hands either forced or tied, and slow-motion replays of the real-time repercussions. She forced herself to hunch forward in her seat, take a tentative sip of her lukewarm tea, and reach for the control panel. Lives lost and worlds won … just press play.
__________
So, what will Bernice see and hear? One-on-one talks with our heroes and their associates, behind-the-scenes glimpses into their day-to-day doings, or snapshots of their most harrowing moments out in the field? That’s up to all of you now.
“Short Cuts” gives you the chance to tell snippets of stories, if you wish, rather than feeling like you have to write out well-rounded or fully developed narratives.
I’ll try to contribute some “Short Cuts” of my own, but I hope to read “Short Cuts” from as many of the rest of you as possible.
