Ok, I have a bit of a rant that I need to let off since I’ve been seeing way too much of this on patrol the past few days. I’m sure you all know by now what has happened in the USA, but for those of you who have been away from the media for the past week or so, let me fill you in. This past Tuesday was election day, and a man named Charles Dampher was elected President of the USA in an upset by the electoral college while the popular vote went to Lara Flinters. This man, whom I have pejoratively called the Toupinator to my colleagues and Marcus, beat out a woman who was more qualified than him by standing on a platform of hatred of minorities and generally anyone that isn’t white, straight, and/or male.
What does this have to do with my patrols, you may ask? First off, the man is an SRA apologist who wants to make the current system stronger and put heftier sentences on operating without registering, but that’s not the biggest thing at the moment. (I know, Psycat not seeing the SRA as the bigger thing? Some big turds have to be going on) The biggest thing of the moment is that I’m seeing a rise in hate crimes while I’m out on patrol from both normal and superpowered people on said minorities.
These jerks have taken the election results as a free pass to do whatever they want to those who are different from them. It doesn’t matter to them that there are laws in place, cops around, and supers patrolling, they just go for it. Earlier today when I was down off of Montrose helping the gayborhood’s new super get to know the layout of the roads, a truck full of dudebros was harassing a lesbian couple just walking on their way to one of the restaurants. We both had our eyes on the scene as they pulled into the couple’s path, a few of the guys hopped out of the car, and started to try to physically assault them. Obviously Red Jade and I weren’t about to let that happen in front of our faces and not do anything about it. They ignored both our warnings (and one of the assholes flipped me the bird) and went for the smaller of the two’s genitalia. That’s when Red Jade rushed the closest guy as I gave the groper a massive migraine, then yelled at the couple to run and call the cops. I’ve never seen women in stiletto heels run so fast. While I was admiring their skill in heels, one of the jackholes decided that I was a punching bag and knocked me to the ground with a right cross. That fucking hurt, even with the psychokinetic net softening the blow and then translating some of it to a headache. This is why I say I don’t take punches too well, because I was on my back for what felt like hours nursing my hurting jaw.
The puncher got up to me and straddled me, crowing about it being Dampher’s country now and they could do what they want. He was starting to go for my cheongsam blouse when I kicked him in the nuts with my steel toed boots and shoved him off of me as he cradled his junk in his hands. I scrambled to my feet to see Red Jade duking it out with the driver of the truck and one of the guys he’d dealt with getting up with a pistol in his hands. I wasn’t about to have that, so I telepathically grabbed a hold of the gun, hit the guy in the face with the slide several times as I was shaking it loose from his grip, dropped the clip, then ejected the chamber round without firing it and tossed it into a nearby storm drain. There was a quip about fighting fair I was working up, but I had to migraine the nutbusted guy before he could grab me. Eventually Red Jade and I had knocked out and/or bloodied the jerks and were in the process of tying the bastards up in the bed of their truck when the police and the SRA showed up to take them off our hands.
The problem with the police having the SRA there is that they’re more dogged about pursuing unregistered supers like myself and Red Jade than they are about hate crimes. I guess I’ve earned a reputation with the local SRA office as one of the more infuriating supers to attempt to bring in for registration and prosecution that as soon as the sergeant taking our statements went to put them into his computer, they were attempting to stun me with tasers. Naturally Red Jade, an already twitchy martial artist from the Austin area originally, knocked the taser pistol out of the agent’s hand before running. This gave me time to flick open the Psydisk from tail form and hop on before the agent could grab his gun and start shooting at me.
I got about to the HCC Downtown building before their chopper caught up with me. I ended up having to bob and weave through the skyline and medical districts and then duck into a tunnel to completely lose the chopper. I’ve never had to hide in the Houston underground so long before, and I don’t care to again. I still can’t believe that Marcus had told me the steel toed boots weren’t worth their weight when I got them last month. Shows him.
Anyways, situations like this have been becoming more commonplace that I’ve started to wear a safety pin on my work uniform and my regular street clothes to let those who are marginalized know that I’m a safe person to talk to if there’s a harasser bothering them. I know it’s not much of a gesture for most people, but there are several of the supers community that are supporting this, so don’t be surprised if a super calls you by name if you talked to a safe space person earlier in the day. We do walk among the civilians in plain clothes, going about our day, the same as you do. We just happen to serve our communities in more than one way.
See ya!
Psycat
