Chapter 73
Chapter 73
“We’re going to put your power through its paces,” Matilda announced, as soon as their accord was made.
Well, that was fast. Best not to give up his cover, though, no matter how fragile.
“Upgrade.”
“Excuse me?” Matilda asked. Her pleased expression had morphed into angry irritation with alarming haste. Did she think he was already reneging on the deal? Probably best to clear that up. Dan disliked the woman enough when she was trying to be polite, he could scarcely imagine how horrible she’d be when well and truly pissed off.
“I have a mutated upgrade,” he repeated slowly, carefully emphasizing every word, “as is specified on my official records.” Unsaid was the fact that he would have to be profoundly stupid to directly contradict those records in any sort of unsecured setting. He hadn’t yet admitted to being a Natural, no matter how many implications Matilda had made, nor did he plan to. Especially not here, in this run-down old dojo.
Understanding emerged on Matilda’s face, followed immediately by a more subtle frustration. “Ah. Of course.” She didn’t bother to disguise the roll of her eyes. “We’re going to put your upgrade through its paces.”
“Neat.” Dan nodded in acceptance. “How and why?”
“With a series of exercises, and because we need to establish a baseline. How else would we measure your progress?” Matilda paused, evaluating Dan with a frown. Her fingers cupped her chin for a moment, and she nodded. “To begin with, I’d like to focus on the most obvious difference between your mutation, and the standard short-hop.”
His veil would normally be Dan’s first thought. It was the most obvious thing that set him apart, that made him unique. Matilda, however, had no idea that it existed. Which meant: “My ability to blindly teleport.”
“Safely,” Matilda corrected sternly. “Your ability to blindly teleport safely. Any idiot with an Alpha version of the short-hop can blindly teleport. It’s surviving the process uninjured that makes you special.”
Dan frowned at the mental images her comment produced. Death by telefragging had to be… messy. “Right. So how are we”—His fingers made air-quotes—”establishing a baseline?”
Matilda held up a finger, signaling him to stay, then walked back to her office. Dan could barely make out the sound of a drawer opening, before she emerged with a large jar of— Marbles? The older woman walked onto the mat in the center of the room, cradling the jar. In a single, smooth motion, she dumped the marbles onto the ground. They rolled merrily along, blanketing the floor like cartoonish caltrops.
Dan stared in bewilderment. “Um.” The sound of glass rolling against wood filled the room as the marbles tumbled off the rubber mat. “I hope you aren’t expecting me to pick those up.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Matilda scoffed, with another roll of her eyes. Her foot swept through a tightly bunched group near her, scattering them like bowling pins. “You’ll be teleporting into the empty space between them.”
Dan eyed the floor, and the many obstacles upon it. He’d never really thought too hard about his power’s ability to safely navigate the world. The reason had always seemed obvious. He wanted to teleport to an open area, so that’s where his power took him. Matilda’s fascination with what seemed to be such a straightforward function puzzled him.
But fine. If she wanted to waste her time, he’d humor her. It’s not like he was revealing anything she didn’t already know. Or, at least, highly suspected.
The older woman ushered him into the dojo’s office, a spartan thing, devoid of decoration and comfort. She produced an old sweatband, holding up to Dan’s eyes.
“Use this as a blindfold,” she explained, moving to stretch it over his head.
Dan quickly stepped backwards, catching hold of her wrist. “Hold up! Why am I being blindfolded?” A not insignificant part of him expected some sort of attack, the moment he couldn’t see.
Matilda huffed in irritation. “To prevent you from seeing your surroundings, obviously.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Dan drawled back. If she wanted to be snooty, he’d eagerly return the favor. “How does that help your little experiment?”
Matilda took a calming breath, rubbing the bridge of her nose. With another heavy sigh, she said, “Your power clearly does not need your sight to function, however it’s entirely possible that it provides some kind of contributing factor. This should help narrow it down. You’ll teleport around the room, avoiding the marbles as best you can. If you don’t lose a foot, we’ll know for certain.”
“Hey!” Dan protested half-heartedly. He had exactly zero fear of losing any part of his body while using his power. He was fairly certain that, should he will it, his power could safely bring him inside a concrete wall. Marcus had postulated that Dan wasn’t teleporting, so much as swapping positions with whatever already existed. Air, water, stone, dirt. His power literally rearranged reality. He was pretty confident that it could handle a few glass marbles.
Matilda patted his shoulder unenthusiastically. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Now, stay in here, while I go rearrange the marbles. When I give you a shout, try teleporting into the center of the room. Make sure the blindfold is on when you arrive.”
“Sounds fun,” Dan grumbled, settling the sweatband over his eyes. He heard the office door open, then shut, followed by silence. Feeling slightly paranoid, Dan peeked out at his surroundings, half-expecting Matilda to still be there, staring at him.
His paranoia was unjustified, thank goodness.
“Okay! Teleport to the center of the room!” Matilda’s voice boomed out from beyond the door. Her pipes could give Gregoir a run for his money.
Dan sighed to himself, before slipping the headband back on. He’d play along for now. Maybe the upgrade analyst could actually teach him something new about his power. It was her job, after all.
He pictured himself in the center of the dojo, feet firmly on the rubber mat, standing in open air, facing the exit. He could feel the moment he changed locations. It was a sense beyond his surroundings, beyond the sudden temperature change, or the sounds of the road, or the spongy mat beneath him. Dan had changed locations, and he knew it.
A mocking clap was his reward.
“Congratulations, you appear to be in one piece,” Matilda droned into his ear from a distant corner. “Next, I’d like you to teleport to the back left corner, from your current orientation. Try to get nice and snug against the wall.”
Dan wasn’t so oblivious as to miss her intentions. Specific instructions, a room he’d barely spent any time studying, and no real idea of distance. Matilda was testing the limits of his power. Beyond that, she was either supremely confident in his success, or utterly unconcerned about any collateral damage that might arise from his failure.
Probably some combination of both. It wasn’t Matilda who would die messily, if Dan’s power didn’t work like she expected it to. Not that Dan thought, for a single moment, that such a thing was possible. If anything, he was growing intrigued at the testing.
This particular exercise was a somewhat new experience for Dan. Though he blindly teleported every day of his life, he’d never set out to intentionally test the boundaries of his ability. It actually took him a few moments to formulate a plan of action; moments that he wouldn’t have in a life-or-death situation. Though he’d never admit it out loud, this might actually be good practice. This was something entirely different than what he’d ever done before.
Dan pictured himself in the corner. Not the dojo’s corner, specifically, as he couldn’t quite remember what it looked like, but the corner. The one behind him, and to the left. It was an idea, a direction, a command. That corner. He envisioned the feeling of his body wedged against the wall, both sides pressing against him, with open air in front of him. He thought about the hard wood beneath his feet. He held these images in his mind, and pictured himself there.
The world shifted, his location changed, and something immediately felt off. Not dangerous, but different from what he had pictured. Dan could feel a hard wall pressing against his right side— Something unsteady jostled against his left. He wiggled his elbow, pushing against the obstruction. The object rocked slightly, back and forth.
“Now that is interesting,” Matilda remarked, a small amount of satisfaction in her voice.
Dan took that as a cue to remove his blindfold. The sight that greeted him was an unexpected one. Rather than being tucked into the far corner of the room, he was standing slightly off-center. One arm pressed against the dojo wall, while the other bumped up against a shoulder-high cabinet.
A cabinet, occupying the space where Matilda had ordered him to appear.
Dan immediately whirled on her, ready to throttle the woman. “Did you just try to kill me?!” The question slipped out before he could control himself. His voice was incredulous, disbelieving and uncertain. He genuinely couldn’t decipher the woman’s intentions. If she had tried to kill him, then she’d gone about it in the dumbest way possible, despite expending a staggering amount of effort to ensnare him.
The idea was utterly idiotic, and Dan couldn’t decide if that made it more or less plausible.
Matilda seemed unruffled by his anger. “Of course not. We’ve already established that your pow- er, excuse me, upgrade avoids obstacles.”
“Then—” Dan gestured at the cabinet, giving it a light shove. “The fuck, woman!?”
She shrugged shamelessly. “I wanted to see how it avoided obstacles. Would you appear on top, or to the side? Would you knock it away as you appear? Would you fail to move entirely?”
“Would I appear inside of it, and die horribly?” Dan finished for her.
“That seemed extremely unlikely,” Matilda stated blandly. “If that were possible, I’m fairly certain it would have happened while you traveled through Red Creek’s forest.”
Dan winced at the reminder of what had triggered this miserable adventure. “Yeah… well.”
“I am curious,” Matilda continued, ignoring Dan’s discomfort. “How do you trigger the act of teleportation?”
“Um.” Dan blinked at the question. How best to describe it? “I just sorta picture myself where I want to be.”
Matilda frowned, but didn’t question his description. Instead, she nodded thoughtfully. “A mental trigger, then. Much the same as the standard short-hop. I wonder what determined your positioning, then. Why did you appear where you did?” Her words were not directed at Dan, so much as merely mumbled out loud. She stared intently at Dan’s point of arrival.
He hesitated, considering if he should add to his explanation. While Dan had nominally agreed to work with her, he was still extremely leery of actually detailing his abilities. Information was power, Marcus had emphasized, and if Dan couldn’t control the flow of information, then he should withhold it. He knew what Abby would say; that he should try, that Matilda could help him grow. It was a reasonable argument on its surface. The older woman hadn’t actually done anything harmful.
Yet.
Dan sighed to himself. No more uncertainty. The choice had been made, already. He would have to stick with it. Buy time for Grandma Summers. Don’t trust, and verify.
And in the meantime, make use of the woman’s skills.
“I pictured myself in the corner,” Dan stated aloud. Matilda’s eyes snapped to him, as he continued, “I pictured myself with walls on either side of me, with my feet on solid ground, in that corner.” He flicked his hand at the cabinet. “Make of that what you will.”
She acknowledged this new information with a grunt, and returned to studying the corner. After a long period of contemplation, she spoke again.
“Your power attempted to match your image,” Matilda spoke with certainty. “That’s why you were wedged between the cabinet and the wall, rather than in front of it, or on top of it. It was the closest you could get without appearing inside the cabinet.”
Dan knew it was true, the moment the words left her mouth. It fit perfectly, from his very first deliberate teleportation. That longing for home, for another dimension, only to appear in front of The Pearson.
He nodded in acknowledgement. “That fits my experiences. What of it?”
“What of it?” Matilda repeated, her voice going shrill. “You don’t find it strange that your upgrade is interpreting your wishes? That it’s capable of making a decision that you didn’t make?”
Dan blinked in confusion. “But I did make the decision.”
“You made the decision to teleport into the corner, yes?” Matilda pressed, taking a step towards him. “Not the decision to teleport slightly to the side of the corner.” She jabbed her finger at him. “Not the decision to teleport beside the cabinet.” Another step, her eyes wide with excitement. “The decision to teleport into the corner!”
Dan slid away from the suddenly manic woman.
“Yes? So what? It did its best,” Dan protested on behalf of his power. He tried not to linger on how absurd he felt doing so.
Matilda darted forward, seizing him by the collar. “Yes! Yes it did!”
Dan willed himself across the room. He appeared next to the exit, brushing himself off.
“Calm down, crazy woman,” Dan directed, holding his hands out defensively. “Take a breath and explain yourself, stop acting like a lunatic, or I’m outta here.”
Matilda spun to face him, a smile splitting her face. “You asked the impossible, and your upgrade attempted to accomplish it! It didn’t fail to activate, as it should have. It didn’t activate anyways, hurting you in the process. It operated in a manner that you did not directly will it to!”
An uncertain feeling tugged at the back of Dan’s mind. A creeping sense of worry, like oil crawling through his bloodstream. Like ants beneath his skin.
Matilda met his eyes, and said the words he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear.
“It took initiative, Daniel Newman.”