I drop the handful of ninja throwing stars back into their pouch on my utility belt and the overhead light glimmers off my hand, hitting the tiny silver nodules encircling the letter Z engraved on my superhero ring.

“Z is for Zarathustra,” says Mikey, noticing me looking at it. “As in Nietzsche’s ‘Superman.’ The goal of the human race is to produce a single cataclysmic individual who renders civilization as we know it obsolete.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“Depends on your point of view. To quote Nietzsche: God is dead. He’s been dead for a long time now. It’s why the world is the way it is. But you’re going to change that. For anyone who can access the Collective Unconscious, the future will be united in purpose, and not for any one person’s God–but for the wellbeing of all. Imagine a world like that.”

I gaze down at the ring on my finger and a not insignificant amount of trepidation hardens in my stomach.

“Sounds like you’re setting up this Zarathustra–me–to replace God,” I say.

“Are you religious?”

“No.”

“Then what do you care? Look. Relax. Enough of this God crap. Don’t take everything so seriously.”

“Ri-ight. Because when I think Edger Bonkovich, I think, now there’s a guy who’s taking life too seriously.”

The door opens to admit Mary dressed in yoga pants and a sports bra and my remaining ability to concentrate goes up in smoke.