Just for some context, this story was inspired by the article of the same name, found

here:http://themasksblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/god-hates-superman.html

But I should note: any similarities to any persons living or dead is purely a coincidence.

Would I lie?

God Hates.... Superman?

A story of Sean Ryan.

Security specialist Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan did not like working science fiction

conventions. There were too many places to hide real weaponry under fake weapons. While

plastic ties were useful, anyone who had come prepared for mischief could bring a proper pair of

cutters, untie their weapon in a bathroom, and be ready for havoc.

Not to mention that dealing with the convention and the con goers was akin to herding

cats. The convention centers were typically so crowded, he was certain that fire safety laws were

perilously close to being violated. And reporting a crime was tough when the only description

you can get is “He was tall, wearing a black helmet, cape, and he breathed funny.”

And then there were days like this.

Electric blue eyes flicked out over the crowd outside the convention center, and Ryan

sighed. “I know California is where all the celebrities are, but I hate this damn state. The land of

fruits and nuts.”

“They're not from around here,” rumbled the voice of Edward over his shoulder.

Ryan looked away from the window and glanced at his partner in crime. Edward “Call

me Eddie and you die,” Murphy was two meters tall, and one wide, a shade of skin that was the
opposite end of the spectrum from Ryan's pale white—Edward liked to say that he was Black

Irish.

“I've considered automatic gunfire,” Edward said, “but that doesn't look good in

headlines.”

Ryan pointed at the crowd and their “God hates Fags” signs. “I don't think that does

either.”

“An appellate court said that they had the right to say whatever they like.”

“I'll go outside an abortion clinic with a sign that says 'Jesus loves babies' and see if they

say the same thing,” Ryan muttered.

“Sean, you've laid waste to more property than some earthquakes. I'm surprised you

don't have a restraining order filed against you by most major cities.”

“Granted.... though are you sure that Paris will let me back in after the last time?”

Edward paused for a moment, uncertain about how to answer that. One the one hand,

there was nothing official. One the other hand, there was an offhand mention of shoot-to-kill

orders.

Sean waved at the gathering outside. “What do you know about this group and the loser

who leads them?”

“From the midwest, and the loser runs the same protests at military funerals. A father

filed against his sorry ass for showing up at his son's military funeral. The court basically said

that the signs had words, therefore it was covered under freedom of speech.”

Ryan blinked. “I suppose I could go out there and say I'm going to kill each and every

one of them—that's covered by freedom of speech too, right?” He sighed, and rolled his eyes.

“Anything else?”
 “Nothing important. Midwest Minister, runs his own church, and they hate Catholics,

Jews, gays, the country—”

“Anyone who isn't them, got it.”

“He's run for office several times as a Democrat—”

“Another reason to vote anarchist.”

“Hey,” Edward laughed, “Robert Byrd was a Democrat, and a Klansman. If the white

hood fits—”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “So, that's it?”

“Well, he hates the country because it tolerates gays—”

“I'm Catholic. I tolerate gays insomuch as they don't hit on me too often.”

Edward arched a brow. “That's a problem for you?” he asked dryly.

“You'd be surprised....” Ryan frowned thoughtfully, staring back out the window at the

crowd of protestors. “Okay, so America tolerates gays, military people protect the country which

protects gays...he protests at the funerals. Okay, fine, this idiot can move to Afghanistan. He

shows up at a convention.... why?”

Edward sighed. “That's the problem. It's not just military funerals. Random high

schools, celebrity deaths, the San Francisco office of Twitter—”

Ryan laughed. “He has signs about hating gays, and made it out of San Francisco alive?

I'm shocked.”

“I don't think he went through Castro.”

Ryan nodded sagely. “Got it. So, that's it?”

“Well, he says that the conventions are for idol worshippers—”

Ryan laughed. “And this moron thought, what? 'I'm going to stand outside and yell,
hoping to get attention amid superheroes, aliens, and a menagerie out of a science fiction

encyclopedia'? We have cameras down there, right?”

“Of course. Why?”

“You know how I like to have evidence that shows the other guy threw first.”

“You think we need to move them?”

Ryan frowned. The line to get into the convention was hemmed in by a small legion of

stormtroopers—all of them volunteers from the 501st Vader's Fist regiment, and most of them

were ex-marines, retired cops, the sort of people you wanted between you and a horde of

fanatics.

“I dislike kegs of gunpowder just lying around. Consider how many G8 summits have

had a riot.”

Edward chuckled. “You mean all of them?”

Ryan nodded. “If not all, then darn near. I'd rather not have these idiots catch us

flatfooted, or decide that they're going to throw a temper tantrum in order to get a few extra news

crews down here.”

“A tantrum defined as...?”

“Provoking a few Cos-players into beating them down, starting a riot, that sort of thing.”

“We've come close already,” Edward told him. “There were complaints.”

“Oh?” Ryan asked, still looking out the window.

“Some people claimed they were assaults by 'the freaks.' ”

“Really? Who?”

“Couldn't say, they were all wearing matching stormtrooper armor.”

Ryan shook his head. “Sounds like bull to me. Conventions are surprisingly orderly.
Unlike soccer games, there are few major outbreaks of violence. None, to my knowledge. I like

to think it's my job to prevent such things. Besides, our stormtroopers would have broken their

jaws.”

“And you want to—”

Ryan turned and gave Edward a large, slightly insane grin, one that made the eyes sparkle

like Tesla coils. “How do bomb squads defuse bombs after they're safe to move?”

Edward nodded. “They detonate the explosives. Got it. So, you have a plan in mind?”

He smiled. “Oh, I'm just going to talk to him.”

“That'll do it.”

“And if it doesn't, well... tell Athena I may need her to go to Plan G20.”

Sean AP Ryan pushed open the doors, and moved towards the crowd of idiots. “One of

these days,” he muttered to himself, “I'm going to raise the rates on jobs like this.”

Ryan, despite being 5'6”, moved like a man who had taken martial arts all of his life, an

image incongruous with the suit and tie he wore—the tie was a clip on so it couldn't be used to

pull him, and the suit covered his gun and his tactical baton. He slipped on sunglasses for a

better poker face.

The building was like every other Javits Center, a great big gray slab of concrete that

looked like a bunker with windows. The only real art involved in the construction was the

multilevel lobby, and perhaps the labyrinthine halls in the lower level.

When Ryan closed on the protestors, he kept a straight face, instead of laughing at all of

them—he didn't want to set them off early. The leader of the group spotted him and thought his

intent was harassment, and moved to meet Ryan in the middle.

 Ryan stopped, waiting for him. When he was certain the minister was close enough to

hear him, he said, “Good morning, Mr. Felps.”

Blink. “What the hell are you talking about? It's already afternoon, and my name is not

—”

Ryan held up his hand and smiled. “I just figured that if you're going to try doing the

impossible, you should adopt the name of the leader of the Mission: Impossible task force.”

The protest leader smiled.... it looked like a cross between a smirk and a sneer, the sort

you get on bullies who know that they couldn't be harmed. Ryan knew this type of person, he

had to beat up his fair share of them growing up—and no one believed them when they claimed

to have been trounced by the smallest person in the class.

“And what are you going to do, Mister....”

“Ryan. Sean Ryan. I'm just going to ask that you move your thugs back another, oh, say,

hundred feet? You're blocking the view of the street, and your crowd is rather unsightly.”

There was a snicker, and a long, rambling speech about his first amendment rights,

freedom of speech, assembly, the courts had deemed him covered by the constitution, and do-

you-know-who-I-am...

Ryan tuned him out, and could probably write him a better speech. In his time in

security, Sean had been railed at by experts. Lawyers, political consultants, handlers for

celebrities, and practically anyone who could string together a grammatically correct compound,

complex sentence had given him a piece of their mind.

Though in this case, he thought, I might tell this guy to hold onto what little he has left.

He cleared his throat when the minister took a breath and said, “Make that a hundred yards.”

“Didn't you hear a word I just—”

 “A hundred meters.”

“Who do you think you—”

“Okay,” Ryan sighed, “now I just want you to leave the city. This town can't be a

hundred kilometers long.”

There was another snicker. “You can't make us.”

Ryan cocked his head, then pointed down the street at the local police standing guard near

one of the exits, and said, “No, but they can.”

“We haven't done anything that we can be arrest for.”

“No?” Ryan caught a bit of reflected movement in the lens of his sunglasses. “But look,

I wonder what this is.”

He stepped back, and the protestors slowly went silent at the two people who had come

out of the main doors. A small crowd had gathered within the convention lobby to look, several

of the con goers already giggling.

One was dressed in typical Jedi Knight attire of long brown robes, white karate uniform,

and purple light saber. The only object out of place was a placard around the female Jedi's neck

—an 8.5”x11” sheet that read “I [Heart] The Pope,” with a large silver Star of David pinned to

the upper corner. The other carried a sign that looked like it had been stolen from one of the

protestors on the street, with the trademark “God Hates [fill in the blank],” and the only thing he

wore was a bright lavender bodystocking with great big glittery fairy wings.

Then they started a mock-dual reminiscent of a Richard Lester slapstick routine. The

fairy looked more like he was prancing than fighting with his protest sign, and the Jedi took her

job of cutting him to ribbons very seriously. The con crowd laughed hysterically—either at the

fight or the blank stares of the protestors, no one could be sure.

 “Hey,” someone called out from the group of protestors, “are they calling us fairies?”

A bottle came through the air, shattering on the ground between the protestors and the

mock fighters.

Like pebbles starting an avalanche, mob mentalities were easy—it only takes one person

to spark the casual simmer of rage and turn it into a full boil of violent action. Immediately after

the glass shattered on the ground, there came a rain of water bottles, concrete stones from the

pavement, rocks, and signs, accompanied by screams of pure hate.

Sean Ryan was already off to the side, standing next to a line of stormtroopers, who had

all taken firing squad positions facing the protestors. When the line of bigots looked like they

were ready to charge, Ryan held up a fist—a signal to hold fire. He reached down, grabbed one

of the stormtroopers' weapons, and raised it to his shoulder.

Ryan dropped to one knee, and the stormtroopers followed suit. “Aim for the body.”

It was at that point that the minister who led this protest wished he knew slightly more

about science fiction. While the guns the stormtroopers held looked like blasters from Star Wars,

they were actually H&K G11 submachine gun.

The minister turned to his flock of sheep, but they were already moving on the con goers.

The convention attendees stayed inside the hall, and they looked like they were ready to meet the

invaders.

Ryan nodded at one person in the crowd as he broke away, and ran towards the line of

stormtroopers. Ryan called out, “Hold fire. Wait for the signal!”

The faux protestor made it to the line of stormtroopers and stopped behind them, like he

had just reached home plate.

The protestors and the convention goers were only yards apart now.
 Sean touched his iPod. The iPod was connected to his radio, so it immediately sent out

the tune he picked to the earpieces of all of the stormtroopers.

The tune was John Williams' Imperial March.

Everyone opened fire.

Rubber bullets hurt. That is a fact of life. And while making the bullets out of rubber

limits the odds of penetration into the body, the worst thing that can happen is if someone takes

one in the eye, but that is about it. However, shoot someone in the chest or stomach area, the

worst that can happen is that will be a lot of pain involved.

Ryan's first target was the leader, putting three rounds deliberately into his chest. The rest

of his minions went down in a hail of rubber.

When all of the noise was over, a kid came out, who couldn't have been more than eight

years old. He was dressed in red and yellow scarf, wire rimmed spectacles, and carried a wand.

He walked over to the heavily bruised body of the fallen minister, and shouted “Avada

Kedavra!”accompanying it with a solid kick between his legs.

As the police hauled the protestors away, Ryan looked at the protestor who ran behind the

line of stormtroopers. “So, why a bottle?”

Gregory Crawford, one of associates in Sean AP Ryan & Associates, smiled. “Well, I

figured that the glass wouldn't penetrate Athena's Jedi robes, and the other guy was out of reach.

And shattering glass is more dramatic than a rock going thud.”

“True,” Ryan said with a nod. “Terry Pratchett isn't here, and I think he copywrited

Thud! Already.” He looked back to the front of the Javits Center at the Jedi Knight he had sent

out to entertain the convention goers, and to provoke the protestors.

 Athena Marcowitz was built for her namesake—she was a 6’2” African-Cuban-Irish-

Jewish-Japanese-Chinese-Puerto Rican, ex-Secret Service Agent and one of Ryan's senior

associates. Currently, she was with the police, giving them a statement in full, professional,

Secret Service standard formality—possibly in triplicate, knowing her. By the time she was

done, the police would be bored to death.

Ryan glanced over to the police wagon and smiled as the minister was the last one loaded

on board. The police had the option of hauling all of them away in ambulances, but since there

weren't enough EMTs in the area to tend to everyone hit with a rubber bullet, the nearest prison

infirmary was going to tend to the minister and his minions.

He put his hand next to his mouth and called out, “Hey, Mr. Felps, I guess the secretary

will have to disavow all knowledge of your existence.”

The minister turned his head towards Ryan, and winced—apparently, one shouldn't make

too many sharp turns of the head after one has bounced their skull against the concrete.

“I have to ask,” Crawford began. “Where did you get the idea to provoke the crowd like

that?”

“What? You mean plant someone in the crowd at one end, provoke them at the other?

You really should pay attention to how they break up protestors in Iran.”