The Trolley Problem
Again, sorry about the slow updates, but long Covid aside, as followers of my main Tumblr will have heard, my laptop keyboard is on its way out and typing is getting increasingly difficult. I’ve ordered a new wireless keyboard, but it hasn’t arrived yet. 🙄
Anyway, back to the superhero universe! warnings for death, police, attempted murder, supervillainy, and ethical dilemmas. Also swearing.
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“Choose,” the villain purred. She didn’t know his name. She was new, she hadn’t learned them all yet. “Who lives? Who dies? Who will you save, little hero?”
Flitter trembled. “I’m not making a choice,” she said, and her voice wasn’t as firm as she wanted it to be, even through the voice-changer. You’re gonna let both those cages down, nice and easy.” One cage full of nurses. One cage full of juvenile offenders. He’d said so, and she could see the scrubs and the jumpsuits for herself. He really wanted this to be a dilemma, and she didn’t know what to do, aside from telling him not to do it, and when did that ever work?
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He laughed at her, hands caressing the controls that suspended the two cages over the street forty floors below. She couldn’t remember his name! She recognized the costume, the jagged streaks of green and white and vivid yellow. This was a dangerous villain, the same guy who’d cut off both of Player One’s legs with some machine just a month ago, and she’d only been a cape for a couple of weeks, she wasn’t up to this guy’s weight in any way even with powers, and she couldn’t remember his name -
And then the villain’s head exploded. She saw it burst before she heard the sound of the gunshots, so they’d come from some distance away. There was red… stuff… all over the wall behind him, and as the body toppled she jumped forward to grab at the handles he’d been toying with - but it wasn’t necessary. Neither cage had moved.
She moved closer and wondered if she should check the body, but… the whole top two-thirds of the head was gone. Trying to take a pulse at this point would just be creepy and weird.