When she found him, she was quite surprised at the proposal that he made. He was a man of extreme, inflated ambition. He had plans for conquest, continually rejected by Center’s leadership, that involved the entire galaxy, and eventually the known universe. Behind the backs of state officials he had spent many years conducting research about extremely far-flung planets, using his travels for planets within their galaxy and the accounts of contacts he had made for places beyond. He had an extensive book containing his research. He hoped that Bland Beauty’s strength could be used toward his ends.
Bland Beauty looked through the book for some time. She saw that closer planets were at the beginning. She skipped to the back of the book and found Earth, a vastly distant, extremely obscure planet. General Imperial’s limited knowledge had come from passing merchants, their information having come from very limited contact. But she was able to gauge that this was a world with people who looked similar to Centerians and had the same life span but lesser abilities. In between conversations Bland Beauty made another discovery, her mother locked up toward the back of General Imperial’s quarters. Deciding that survival meant leaving Center behind, Bland Beauty volunteered for the mission of conquering Earth for Center’s empire.
General Imperial kept her isolated from the rest of the compound for several days while he secretly assembled a team for the mission. She watched intently as preparations were made. She caught on very quickly as they discussed the matters that involved the spaceship’s propulsion, as well as its stealth properties. She learned that it could go for vast distances without refueling. It was not clear whether even that was enough for the billions of light years that would be travelled, let alone any journey back. However Bland Beauty was not personally concerned with a journey back.
Nobody outside of General Imperial’s circle knew about the mission, and he was in no position to speak up were he betrayed. Knowing this, she took a tremendous risk. One day before the mission was to begin, she broke into General Imperial’s quarters and freed her mother. Together they entered the ship. Bland Beauty made clever use of her budding knowledge to make the ship faster than any other in the fleet, and to turn it invisible. They quietly sealed all of the ship’s exits. Then without warning, they took off and began their vast journey to Earth.
Their escape was quiet, sudden and irreversible. As mother and daughter left their solar system forever, the full consequences of the event slowly came down upon them. Knowing they now headed for a long, uncertain journey, ultimately bound for a place they had never seen, never to return, they embraced each other hard and cried.
As Bland Beauty and Bland Homemaker flew farther and farther into space, they began to settle into a new reality. It was soon clear that their escape was complete. But a new fear gripped them, for now they headed into the unknowable.
Yet they experienced a safety that they had long since forgotten. For the first time both mother and daughter could live without fear of prying eyes or sudden attacks. They could now simply rest easily with the privilege, taken for granted by many, that they could simply continue without immediate threats.
During this time, Bland Beauty learned another skill. Since she was able to transform herself, she began to wonder if the she could apply the science outwardly. She used the interminable hours she had toward experimenting on transforming objects. This proved a very arduous, complicated process. She would have to use tremendous concentration, making and remembering thousands—or even millions—of minute decisions in a space of a few seconds. There were endlessly frustrating cases of trial-and-error. But in time she would become quite proficient. This power would be applied to the ship, resulting in (for now) limited capital projects to improve the quality of life she and her mother faced during their journey. Yet this process would continue long after they landed on Earth; one day she would transform the vessel into a spacecraft such as the universe had never seen, Starship Infinity.
When after a great span of time, and a vast stretch of space travel, they finally began to approach their new world, they were faced with new surprises. They were astonished that there were no spacecraft from Earth to greet them, or outlying human colonies on other worlds. Earth’s people had virtually no presence anywhere except for their own world, and a very limited swath of the outlying orbit.
As they watched their new world for some weeks with their super senses, learning its culture for their adaptation, they found that there were more differences than they had been prepared for. Very much unlike Center, Earth was divided into many countries. More shockingly, humans were clearly far weaker, were many centuries behind them in science and technology, and lacked many other abilities that they had assumed were basic.
Most surprising of all was human speech. The notion of speaking through oral sound was completely foreign; indeed at first blush it seemed to them rather animalistic. However they gained more respect for the language once they actually began to learn it. It may not have been as vastly complex as Centerian communication, but it proved elegant and indeed quite ingenious.
They decided to live in New York City. Bland Homemaker was reminded of the City of Progress as it had been in her youth. She also hoped that they would stand out less in a place where people were used to diversity. The mother decided to adapt their Centerian names to American culture rather than making up new names. And so Bland Beauty became Bonnie Boring and Bland Homemaker became Betty Boring.
They landed on Earth at last in secret, late at night in the dead of New York’s winter. Before they began their new lives, Betty had to make a hard decision. Her daughter, now a teen, ever head-strong and never properly educated, was now sharing a world with people many times weaker than herself. The danger before her was too great to ignore.
Bonnie was horrified at the ruling of her mother. Betty decided on that night to hold Bonnie back from using her powers, and that both of them would live as ordinary humans. As a consolation, she would be allowed to operate privately. The spaceship, to be kept on the Dark Side of the Moon, would be her outlet. Here Bonnie proposed to use her powers “to infinity.” After she repeated that several times, Betty playfully called her “Ms. Infinity,” never suspecting she was renaming her daughter for the second time.
They moved to Woodside, in the Borough of Queens, as multicultural a neighborhood as any in New York. The day after their move, they were invited over by their neighbors, the Lin’s. Nervously Betty brought Bonnie to visit human neighbors for the first time.
Bonnie went into the living room to talk to Lisa while the adults took tea in the kitchen. Betty was extremely cautious, needlessly addressing Rob and Tracy as “Mr. and Mrs. Lin,” and thanking them excessively for the slightest acts of kindness. Tracy discussed her concerns about her own daughter. She worried that Lisa had no friends of her own, and wondered if she was too “quirky” and “outspoken.”
After a few minutes they heard a loud noise in the other room, and what sounded like yelling. Betty was mortified, convinced that Bonnie had picked a fight and ruined their chances of making friends in their new world. She ran to the other room, taking care not to use superhuman speed.
Betty was tremendously relieved at her discovery, and also quite surprised at the child she had just met. The crashing noise was simply a coffee table book that Bonnie had carelessly knocked to the hardwood floor. And Bonnie and Lisa were not yelling but giggling loudly. Their conversation had turned almost immediately to juvenile maters involving bodily functions, and had now escalated to spirited practice.
It was agreed by parents and children alike that the girls should play outside. Before long they were running and climbing like the rambunctious children they both were, though Bonnie struggled to keep from using her superhuman strength and speed.
Within a few minutes, something happened that cemented their friendship for life. As they played, they heard a commotion in the street. When they looked, they discovered that a boy was being bullied by several other boys. Bonnie felt a dilemma; she wanted
to use her powers to put a stop to it, but she had to follow her mother’s orders. But before she could worry for long, Lisa stepped in and demanded that the bullies leave the boy alone. One of them started to threaten Lisa, but Lisa simply confronted him back. Within a minute, they had all walked or run away.
On the way home, Bonnie recounted every moment of Lisa’s confrontation with the bullies. Minutes after they arrived at home, Lisa knocked at their door, apparently unwilling to be separated from Bonnie for a minute longer. Bonnie jumped up and ran off with her, neglecting her unpacking duties. As the two girls ran outside giggling, Betty sat down and cried, not out of sadness, but out of relief. For the first time in many, many years, she and her daughter could live safely and openly. The long exile of Bland Homemaker and Bland Beauty was over at last.
Ms. Infinity Art
[1] Despite his name, and the expectations that came with it, Savior of War would eventually be killed in his very first battle, running away from enemy fire.
[2] Centerian culture does not recognize its revolution around its sun, holding instead that all bodies revolve around it, so a “year” is regarded as a “seasonal rotation.”
[3] Neither Misery nor Bland Beauty knew of the family that the general kept in another city, nor had his present wife learned of Misery. It would be many years before Bonnie Boring learned this fact, and the consequences that would come of it.
Ms. Infinity (Book 2): Where Infinity Begins Page 27