Strongbad’s computer dies

Strongbad’s computer dies along with magnetism in general.

The hum of the computer fan was the only sound in Strongbad’s cramped apartment, a steady drone that kept him grounded as he hammered away at his keyboard. The glow of the monitor cast blue light across his face, glinting off his red wrestling mask as he typed out snarky emails. Outside, the city pulsed with its usual electric hum—streetlights buzzing, cars droning, the faint chaos of life. A few magnets clung to his fridge across the room, holding up a pizza coupon, a doodle of The Cheat, and a flyer for Trogdor’s latest burnination gig.

Then, without warning, the world went silent.

The computer screen blinked out. The fan stopped. The room plunged into darkness as every light bulb died. Strongbad froze, his gloved hands hovering over a now-dead keyboard. He jabbed the power button, but nothing happened. His phone, sitting beside him, was a useless brick. Even the faint hum of the refrigerator had vanished. The city outside his window was eerily quiet—no car horns, no distant sirens, just an unnatural stillness.“What in the crap?” he muttered, shoving back his chair. It creaked, the only sound in the void. He groped for the flashlight on his desk, but it, too, was dead. Grumbling, he stomped to the kitchen, his boots loud in the silence. He reached for the fridge to grab a Cold One, but something clattered to the floor. He squinted in the dim moonlight streaming through the window.

The magnets—every single one—had fallen off the fridge. The pizza coupon fluttered down, followed by The Cheat’s doodle and the Trogdor flyer. He picked up a small, star-shaped magnet, one he’d swiped from a nerdy science fair. It felt... wrong. Lifeless. He grabbed a metal spoon from the counter and held it near the magnet. Nothing. No pull, no stick. He tried another magnet, a chunky rectangle from a Strong Sad poetry reading. Same deal.“This is seriously uncool,” he growled. Magnets didn’t just quit. His brain churned—alien invasion? Government conspiracy? But those wouldn’t explain the magnets. Something was totally whacked.

As he stood there, a weird feeling hit him, like a pressure in his head popping loose. His vision blurred, then sharpened, but not in a normal way. Colors popped, edges glowed. He felt a tug, not in his body, but in his mind—a whisper of something beyond his usual awesome perception. He turned toward the window, and for a second, he swore he could feel the people in the apartment building across the street. Not see them, not hear them, but know them—their panic, their confusion, their thoughts as jumbled as his own.“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Strongbad said, stepping back. “What’s this freaky-deaky nonsense?” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but the sensation grew. Images flashed in his mind—Homestar pacing in his apartment, muttering about juice boxes; Coach Z freaking out over a dead boombox; Bubs clutching his silent cash register. He wasn’t making this up. He was seeing them, through walls and distance.

The world had flipped. Later, he’d learn the truth: an unknown field, some cosmic weirdness, had swept through the planet, neutralizing Earth’s magnetic fields and rendering permanent magnets useless. Electronics, tied to electromagnetic mojo, had tanked. But the absence of those fields, which had blanketed the world forever, had unlocked something else—something buried in humanity’s core. Magic, ESP, stuff Strongbad would’ve called “total bunk” before tonight, were no longer blocked by the invisible buzz of magnetic interference.

Strongbad didn’t know this yet. All he knew was the strange heat in his gloves as he glared at the fallen magnet on the floor. He reached out, not with his hands but with his mind, and the magnet twitched. It didn’t stick to the fridge—it couldn’t—but it floated, wobbling an inch above the tile, trembling as he stared, jaw dropped.

Outside, the city was waking up to its new deal. A guy down the street sparked a faint glow in his hand, lighting up his shocked face. A lady in the park sensed the thoughts of pigeons, coaxing them to perch on her arm. The world was busted, but it was alive in ways Strongbad had never imagined.

He let the magnet drop, his breath shaky. “Okay, world,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see what else Strongbad’s got in this new bag of tricks.”