"Burrito at Midnight" is set in a failing society. It is while things are taking a bad turn. It’s the downswing, while "Burrito at Midnight World" is the upswing. It is set when things are coming back up, after all the badness happened.
"Burrito at Midnight" is a society vignette. A focused view. Set in a situation where the mc is without a lot of resources and is quietly living through "the end of the world."
Dr. Zee realizes that when Kanon-Darkstar stepped through the portal, the supervillain was instantly vaporized.
Like water droplets spread everywhere after a glass of water is flung into a moving fan.
Some droplets are bigger than others. Some are microscopic. They disperse everywhere.
All the Kanon-Darkstars carry an imprint of who they are. A seed of what they can be if given enough time.
And Kanon-Dr. Zee is left without a Darkstar to worship.
So he uses his machines and his superscience to track down every single one of those droplets. No matter how small and seemingly insignificant.
Because he knows that every piece of Darkstar has it in them to become another, fully formed Darkstar.
People mistake him for being a good person. Always so helpful. Every iteration of him that had their own Darkstar left a mark of seeming benevolence.
He could no longer remember the first instance when he’d been effected by Darkstar’s Charm. That tsunami of psionic force that had hit him so unaware.
There were no records–that coward hadn’t dared to leave one–but he was fairly sure that he had been the one to edit his own memories. A fruitless attempt to excise every bit of Darkstar out of him.
But Darkstar was a pervading force. He could not and would not be denied. (Ray would make it so. The path before Darkstar would be lined by the golden bricks that Ray would lay for him.) The memory of that first experience (no doubt something he now regretted not remembering) had been taken from him in a poor attempt to —-inoculate—- him against Darkstar’s Charm.
He wondered how hard that other Ray had struggled. How futile everything had been as his mind had folded in on itself.
He knew his mind had been affected. But he didn’t remember it happening. He had spared himself from it (and he resented that. Not remembering falling in love for the first and only time in his life).
He’d gone to bed the same bitter and small person he’d always been. And he’d awoken one day to the full glory of his obsession with Darkstar.
He didn’t know what kind of person he’d have been without Darkstar. But he thought he might have been a bad one.
He’d been on his way to being a bad one.
Little things that would become big things, and the kind of actions that got a person labeled as a supervillain with a short trip to Butcher Bay awaiting them in the future.
He’d been on his way to being a very different person. Only he’d crossed paths with Darkstar.
Or Starburst as he’d called himself then. A serious mess if there ever was one.
Mocked and abused by the media. A ludicrous figure in the stories shared about him. A serious failure as a supervillain.
Ray had done the math. He’d run simulations and built datasets. It was clear that Darkstar had done more societal good as a supervillain than he’d done as a superhero.
But overall he had done societal good.
His presence had created a positive result.
~Harper Kingsley
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