The Law of Averages

Book 2: Chapter 14: Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3.

The reporters were gone by the time morning rolled around, though the news cycle had yet to move on to other things. Dan was just glad that nobody had camped out on his front lawn, looking for an interview. Gregoir’s presence had likely helped in that, the gentle giant’s implacable form patrolling the borders of Dan’s property with grim determination.

Abby slipped out for work come dawn. Gregoir offered to drive her, given their complete lack of vehicular transportation, and his ongoing bodyguard duties. Dan was fairly certain that the massive police officer was meant to be guarding him, not his girlfriend, but selling Gregoir on his concern for Abby’s welfare had been incredibly easy. Dan was to be left to his own devices, given how impractical it was to follow him around, and how difficult it was to actually pin him down.

He really needed to get on top of the car situation. Neither he nor Abby had even thought about how to get from home to work. Dan no longer needed to worry about such things, and Abby was used to having a car on demand. Abby wouldn’t officially start work until the next week, but she still needed to show up for new trainer orientation by noon.

At least she’d be facing no press at work. Nobody there would interrogate her about the events of the previous evening. It had been a small miracle, but she’d stayed out of sight of the camera crews. The house was in Dan’s name, and nobody who didn’t know him could have connected him with the Summers’ heiress. Her anonymity was safe, for now.

Well, somewhat safe. Gregoir would have to come up with something to explain his presence. Dan sincerely hoped the big man could do subtle, or some variation thereof. It was a little difficult to explain a police escort, without revealing some uncomfortable truths.

Abby’s face wasn’t well known; her grandmother had sheltered her from the public sphere as she grew up, and she’d never sought out attention. It allowed her to move around in public relatively unbothered. Even at her new job, nobody knew her relation to the tech giant. Summers wasn’t an uncommon name, after all. Nobody had a reason to investigate her.

That might change, now. Dan would need to be careful for the next week or two, until the media settled down. He was the flavor of the week right now. Him, Connor and Freya. Only the two officers had been named, but any idiot could look up the owner of a house. It’s not like Dan had been hiding. So there he was, with his picture in the news. His fifteen minutes of fame. It was fine if it was just him, but that wasn’t the issue. A picture of him and Abby, out and about, might prompt someone to ask, ‘who is that pretty gal on his arm?’

Neither of them wanted that kind of attention.

Dan watched Gregoir drive his girlfriend to work. He quietly touched his lips, where she’d kissed him goodbye. As much as he wanted to pick her up from work, that would be really stupid at the moment. He’d arrange for a cab, instead. Gregoir could follow at a distance. He really didn’t want her riding shotgun in a police car on the way home. Too many opportunities for a random paparazzo to take a picture of her.

After that was arranged… well, Dan’s day was more or less wide open.

He was looking forward to it.

Dan found himself back at the mall for lunch. He bought himself some fried catfish, served by fish-tailed sirens, their rainbow scales glittering beneath the bright lights. Dan smiled in thanks, doing his very best not to stare at the woman’s twitching gills. They weren’t as off-putting as they’d been at first, but the wide tracts of red fleshy bits still made him a little ill.

After he ate, he paid a visit to the blacksmith. Partly to apologize for his abrupt departure, and partly to finish commissioning his shiny metal stabbing device. It ended up costing him a pretty penny, but the bargain was finally struck. Dan would pick up his cane sword in a week. It was a frivolous expense, a complete waste of money. It’d probably just go up on his wall or something, but he wanted it, so there.

He also picked up some round ball bearings. Nothing special, just two and a half inch steel balls that weighed something like a pound each. They came in a little cardboard rectangle that was heavier than the average cat and half the size. Dan dropped the thing off in his bedroom as soon as he paid. He’d be needing those, later.

His next stop was a woman’s outlet store. He would never try to buy clothes for Abby, but he thought some understated jewelry might not be unwelcome. The saleswoman was incredibly helpful. She was a cheerful teenager, probably just out of high school. Dan brought up several pictures of Abby on his phone, and after a minute of scrutiny, the young woman produced several bracelets he thought she might like.

Dan got the one with a dangling heart, because he was a giant sap.

He tipped the young woman for her help, and made for the registers. On the way, he passed an unadorned manikin, the pale, featureless plastic triggering a sudden impulse in his mind. He turned to the nearest employee, pointing at the figure.

“Can I buy one of those?” he asked directly.

The woman stared at him with naked suspicion. “What for?”

Dan crinkled his nose. “Nothing that would justify that kind of look! Can I buy it or not?”

“…Let me call my manager,” she replied, her eyes narrowed on him.

Dan rolled his eyes, but waited patiently for the local authority to arrive. She was an older woman, looking extremely harried and entirely done with customers’ shit. Dan could sympathize. He’d never worked in retail, but he was no stranger to annoying and difficult people.

He went straight to the point. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a manikin.”

The manager’s response was mirrored her employee’s almost exactly. With narrowed eyes and a voice laced with suspicion, she asked, “Why?”

Dan frowned. “Do you seriously care? It doesn’t need to be a new one. If you’ve got a broken one laying around in the back I’ll take that. All I really need is the upper body.”

The manager squinted at him, before deciding she really didn’t give a shit. She shrugged, told him to wait a minute, then left. As it turned out, they did have a broken manikin in the back. Dan left the store with a manikin’s torso tucked beneath one arm and a decorative box in the other. The single hand attached to the body flapped around with every step, and Dan blinked away the moment he cleared the exit.

He dumped the manikin in his back yard. Its single limb tumbled free the moment it impacted the grass. The decorative box, bracelet tucked carefully inside, he left on Abby’s pillow. Merrill examined the gift with confused squeaks, even popping it open to gaze at the shiny metal, before finally huffing her approval.

“Well as long as you’re happy,” Dan laughed, rubbing the mouse’s fuzzy head.

He scooped up his box of ball bearings, popping it open and plucking out a single one. He dropped the box down on his bed, and blinked down to the backyard. He eyed his manikin for a few moments, puzzling over what should be done, before blinking back inside. He picked up one of his cheaper chairs then, after a moment’s consideration, grabbed another two.

He reappeared in the backyard and lined the chairs up parallel with the street. His yard was fairly enormous, given that his home was technically two lots. It gave him a great deal of space to work with. He propped the manikin up, leaning it against the back of the chair. The next two chairs, he filled with sandbags, and placed them directly behind each other. He eyed his work, not feeling entirely comfortable with the result, but entirely to antsy to keep at it.

Preparations complete, Dan pulled out the ball bearing and fell into t-space. Dan had himself a theory. The Gap was filled with cosmic radiation, that much was practically confirmed by Connor’s spontaneous naturalization. It happened minutes after Dan had given the young man files that had been marinating in t-space for who knows how long. With the time difference, it could have been centuries. Millenia. He couldn’t begin to guess. And now Connor was changed, forever.

Incarnation, Abby called it. To embody the divine. That spoke volumes about how people first saw powers, how Anastasia had taught her granddaughter. Something amazing, unique, and wonderful. That hadn’t lasted long. There was probably another word for it now. Something darker and more grim, even if he hadn’t heard it yet.

But he was getting distracted.

T-space: The Final Frontier. It was clearly saturated in cosmic radiation, but Dan had been all but living in that shit from the very beginning. Even brief exposure had the potential to catalyze a natural. So, then, why hadn’t he juiced up Connor’s entire class the first time they met? Or Connor himself, every subsequent time thereafter? Why wasn’t he a walking, talking, radiation warning?

Two reasons came to mind. The first was time. Perhaps it simply took a really, really long ass time for the energy of the Gap to cling to Dan, or his clothing, or whatever else he brought with him. Perhaps it really did take years of exposure for an item to be doused enough to make a difference. That might be true, but Dan doubted it was the entire reason.

Why could he stay in the Gap, and remain unaffected? Why could he look into its depths, and not be driven utterly insane? Where was the screaming chaos that had accompanied his first few trips? What allowed his mind to adjust, what kept him sane and healthy?

It all boiled down to his veil. His sword and shield, his gateway to another world. He could see it, wrapped tight around his skin, drowning his clothes and the tiny iron ball in his hand. He could feel it. The odd sensations of what it touched, the coiled not-muscles waiting for his commands, and the alien ambivalence of his navigator, all working in perfect tandem.

What he was about to do was dangerous in more than one regard. Not just physical consequences, but legal ones, should something go wrong. He was… pretty sure he’d be fine. It didn’t make him any less nervous.

Dan tightened his fist around the ball bearing, and fell. Not-gravity pulled him downward, and he dropped down down down. Faster and faster he fell, as false vertigo played havoc with his senses. There was no way to determine his speed. All he could do is keep track of the time.

Thirty seconds passed, and then a minute. Dan was falling his arms flapping upwards, caught in a draft that didn’t exist. His eyes were closed. His mind spun.

It was time.

Dan twisted, moving in a way that was probably impossible in freefall, but the Gap took his intentions and physics gave way to expectation. He turned on his heel, falling into a pitchers motion, ball bearing in hand. The tiny chunk of metal wasn’t the most throwable object in the world, but Dan gave it a hell of a try. He pivoted, hips twisting and arm flinging forward. The ball left his hand, brushing the tip of his fingers.

Down is not down.

He reappeared in his backyard, less than twenty feet from the manikin, all of his momentum converted parallel to the ground. For a single, terrifying instant, Dan existed in the real world. Then, he was gone; whisked away to safety by his veil and his will. The ball fired forward like it was shot out of a cannon, and Dan reappeared, perfectly still.

The ball bearing ripped through the manikin’s chest, obliterated the wooden back of the chair, and hit the sandbags hard enough to knock over the next two seats. Gritty sand sprayed across Dan’s face, as he flinched back in shock. It had been surprisingly quiet, but the damage he’d inflicted spoke volumes.

So, that would have worked on the gunmen. Good to know. He grinned viciously.

Next experiment.