As a followup to last week’s hypothetical, it is 25 years since the discovery that could grant superpowers to ten year olds at a high price. The world has changed, mostly for the better but not entirely. There have been problems with rich teenagers who thought their powers put them above the law: some went to jail, some did serious harm, some killed unpowered people.

But most didn’t. They’re celebrities now, and they use their powers in non-violent ways to improve the world–generate power, end droughts, that sort of thing. They are also very powerful people, culturally and politically, and even more rich than their parents.

You are an average person in this world, one of billions living their lives peacefully, doing what you do. You also have a ten year old who will turn eleven at the end of next week and pass beyond the age that he can become empowered. Like every kid, he wants superpowers, and asks you to buy a lottery ticket in the hopes that he can get one. You do buy one, and it comes up a winner.

With your new-found wealth, you could live he easy life for the rest of your life and pass on a comfy inheritance, or you could spend the whole thing in one go to give your kid powers. He’s excited and already starting to have power fantasies. You believe he’s a good kid (you’ve raised him well) but most kids are a handful in their teenage years.

Would you buy superpowers for him? If so, what would they be?

You are approached by a team of comic-book style Super Scientists (iow, men and women who can do Impossible Things with custom-built machinery), one of whom is your sister. They tell you that they have a special process that can grant a human being superpowers. The subject would not be harmed by the process and would not be changed in any way except that they would have powers.

However, there are limitations: they can not grant super-intelligence, since the process causes megalomania and death rays. They can not grant immunity to illness because of the complexities of the biological processes inside the body. They can not grant fast healing because it causes cancer. They can not grant immortality. But superstrength, superspeed, flight, invisibility, lightning control, elasticity… all those are on the table.

There is another limitation: They can not grant superpowers to anyone over the age of ten.

You (the fictional “you” for the purpose of this hypothetical) have a ten-year-old at home. This child is a candidate to receive superpowers, mainly because you and your sister are so close. You know your sister would never offer to use the process on your child unless it had been carefully tested because she loves you and your family very much.

However, your child is an average kid, emotionally. Somewhat lazy, immature, defiant… the whole deal. They aren’t a mature and responsible adult.

What would you do? Discuss it with your spouse? With your child? Is there a power you would consider? Your sister explains that they are going to be going public with this discovery, so you can put it off if you want, but if you change your mind later, you’ll have to pay to have the process done, and the price tag is going to be prohibitive.

Would you want to have an immature person with superpowers at home?

You are contacted by an old friend who invites you to a gettogether. After hanging for a while, the friend wants to show you something really cool. He leads you to the secret lab where he works and uses his security pass to get you in after hours.

There he shows you a special device. It can send a message back in time to one of four days, New Years Day in 1950, 1960, 1970 or 1980. The message will be received by a machine which will print it out on a postcard, stamp it, and then drop it into a chute to an outgoing mailbox.

Your friend offers you the chance to send a message, but it can’t be longer than a tweet: 140 characters. You can send it to any of those dates and it will be mailed to the person of your choosing (the address is handled separately from the tweet and will not affect the length of the msg you can send, but it also can not contain non-address information or the postcard will not be stamped and mailed, just discarded. Also, you can only do one for technical reasons he can’t explain. Your friend also tells you to keep in mind that most of the messages sent so far have been discarded by the recipients for various reasons.

Do you send a tweet? Who do you send it to, and when? What steps do you take to ensure it won’t be laughed off or ignored?

Another favor! Your habit of performing minor kindnesses (offering directions to a bowling alley, maybe) benefits yet another extra-dimensional sorcerer. Surprise! This time the sorcerer gives you a special stone that will change you in a very specific way.

The grateful sorcerer informs you that all you have to do is close you eyes and say “I wish that, for the rest of my life, I will never…” and then say a single thing you will never do, or never do again. It must be something you do with your mind: an emotion, an addiction, a thought, a memory, etc. You can’t say “… will never die of a heart attack” or “will never have less than a million dollars in my bank account” because those things aren’t habits, thoughts, feelings.

You mention, politely, that there is a long storytelling tradition in our world in which magical gifts such as this one always operate in such a way to harm the person using it in an unexpected way. The sorcerer laughs at this in a startled way, as though you’ve said something scandalous, then assures you that such a person would be an infamous criminal back home, and then assures you that there is nothing sneaky or underhanded about this gift. It will perform as described.

The sorcerer vanishes (to go bowling, I’m sure) leaving you with the stone. You have a chance to rid yourself, for the remainder of your life, of a particular mental quirk. Would you make the wish? What would the wish be?

You do a rather mundane favor for a stranger (helping him find the library, paying for the coffee he ordered but couldn’t afford, something like that) and he is grateful to you beyond all expectations. Such kindness must be rewarded!

The stranger explains to you that he is a visitor from another realm, a land of great magic, where he is a powerful wizard. Favors carry great weight in the land where he comes from, and so he must present you with a gift.

He gives you a gun loaded with a single bullet. This gun, which can be fired only once, will hit anything or anyone anywhere in the present or past. You can shoot Hitler lying in his crib, or you can shoot Kitty Genovese’s attacker just as he lunges at her. You can shoot Constantine while he dreams about the cross, or you can shoot the abusive creep your sister married.

You could, if you wanted, shoot a hole in one of the Apollo landing modules, or into the engine of the Enola Gay. Maybe you could even shoot out the lock holding shut the doors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company.

You mention, politely, that there is a long storytelling tradition in our world in which magical gifts such as this one always operate in such a way to harm the person using it in an unexpected way. The sorcerer laughs at this in a startled way, as though you’ve said something scandalous, then assures you that such a person would be an infamous criminal back home, and then assures you that there is nothing sneaky or underhanded about this gift. It will perform as described.

Do you fire the gun, and what do you shoot?

Having received news that a distant relation you have never even heard of before has died and left you a house, you take a long weekend to investigate this unexpected inheritance. No one else can get away for the long trip, so you have to go alone.

There is, as you might expect, a quite unusual door off the kitchen. When you open it with the unusual key you’ve been given, you step through and find yourself…

You find yourself standing on a grassy hill on a beautiful sunny day. Stretched out below you is an archetypal futuristic city of many a utopian imagination. There are tall white buildings, shining white monorails and pavillions, etc. Not to mention people flying around with actual jetpacks.

Nearby, a robot trims the park grass, and some distance away you can see an family having a picnic. The family looks like quite ordinary people, except that they’re all wearing futuristic outfits.

You glance behind you and see that the portal is slowly closing. [added later] And your key is gone. You have maybe 4 or 5 seconds to decide if you are going to lose what may be your only chance at going home, or to stay here in what appears to be a futuristic utopia.

All you have with you are the clothes on your back, a week’s worth of personal medications (if you need them), and anything you would normally carry for a long trip, like your wallet/purse, phone, glasses, etc. All your luggage is still out in the car.

Do you jump back through the portal, returning to your family, friends, job, and position in society, or do you stay and explore?

Your only child (if you don’t have one, just imagine–if you have several, imagine there’s just one) is five years old, and she has been attacked by a vampire, and turned.

No one else knows about this. She sleeps during the day and can not survive in the sun. Also, crosses or religious symbols do not harm her or ward her off. She has a terrible allergic reaction to garlic. She must have blood every day, but she requires so little that you don’t have to kill anyone. It’s a bother to procure the blood, but not impossible.

However, she’ll remain five for all eternity… or until she’s staked. You must keep her condition a secret (lest she be killed) but you also know that you can’t care for her forever (because you’ll grow old and die), and she will never be able to care for herself. She can’t learn new things, can’t talk like a grownup, can’t become a criminal mastermind the way little girl vampires do on TV. She’ll be five always.

The question: Do you (and/or your spouse, if you have one) turn yourselves into vampires, too, so she will always have someone to care for her?