Chapter 90
Chapter 90
Dan lurched back into consciousness with a gasp. His face throbbed and his chest felt like a hippo had sat on it. Judging from the frantic footsteps and worried shouting coming from just beyond the entrance to his lair, he’d only been out for a few moments. Oh, and the floor was covered in paper. Had he done that?
No, the orb did… something. Abby had clearly heard something, loud or strange enough to investigate. Had the damn thing exploded? Dan’s ears were ringing, so signs pointed to ‘probably’.
“This was a poorly thought out plan,” he berated himself. He’d had quite a few of those lately, brought about by some truly impulsive decisions. This, however, was the first time that anything had backfired so immediately or spectacularly. His body was one big bruise. It wasn’t a great feeling.
The aches in his body were punctuated by the sound of an angry Abby storming across the room to where he lay. She pressed a hand against his cheek, frantically checking him over, completely disregarding the state of the room. After several seconds of worrying over him, the expression on her face contorted into a fierce frown. She jabbed him in the shoulder, just hard enough to make him wince.
“‘I’ll be right back,’ you said!” she said, pulling her hand back to make air quotes with her fingers. “‘I’ve got an idea,’ you said. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ you said!” She gestured to his body with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “Why do your insides look like you were in a car accident!? You big fat liar!”
Dan winced at the accusation. It was, unfortunately, warranted. With a wan smile, he admitted, “Sorry Abs, I messed up.”
His words had absolutely no effect on her temper.
“What were you thinking?” she exclaimed.
What was he thinking? Anger reared its ugly head at the question. For a fleeting moment, he considered snapping back something that he’d regret, but his most recent experience made him hold his tongue.
He breathed in deep and let it out slow. “I’m not sure if you’ve forgotten, but your lovely grandmother has likely bugged every inch of my house. I literally cannot speak my mind without being overheard. How am I supposed to talk about anything I want kept secret?” He couldn’t keep the helpless frustration out of his voice. “I thought I’d found a solution, so I acted.”
“You can’t just—” Abby paused, then made a noise somewhere between an angry growl and an exasperated sigh. She ran a hand down her face. “Danny, I get that it’s frustrating, but that’s no excuse to rush into things like a dummy. We’ve got time, and more importantly, paper. You could’ve written it down!”
That was an excellent point. How had he not thought of it? He spent a moment running over his thought process, or lack thereof, before the answer hit him.
“Instant gratification,” he said, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice.
Abby’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“I’ve gotten used to instant gratification,” Dan explained, his mind running through the past few days. “My power is instantaneous and almost perfectly responsive. It’s made me reckless. I’ve just been… doing things, as soon as they occur to me. Because I think I can. Because I want to.”
He paused, then added, “Fuck.”
“Recklessness is not a great trait to cultivate,” Abby noted with a worried frown. “I hadn’t even noticed. I mean, you’ve been acting a little more impulsive lately, but I thought it was just a temporary thing.”
“It’s just been these past few months, slowly adding up,” Dan said, rubbing his temples. “For every wonderful thing that’s happened to me,” he waved at her, winning him a small smile, “something insane seems to accompany it.”
Abby’s insanity was named Anastasia and came in a convenient human-shaped package, but it wasn’t just her. His Academy class was a breath of fresh air, right up until Matilda ruined it. He finally had a home, except it was formerly occupied by terrorists and had a hidden death dungeon instead of a basement. He’d made some great new friends, but was currently being blackmailed by two separate people.
“I just wanted this problem to be over and done with,” Dan explained, staggering to his feet. “I was impatient, and I let it get the better of me.”
His power made him largely immune to physical consequences, so long as he could react in time. Having the ability to just step away from it all at the drop of a hat had given him a sense of unearned invincibility. It hadn’t helped that his training routine had changed drastically, since he and Abby had started dating. Rather than a brutal, hour long beat-down, it had become something rather more intimate, if no less physical. He was quickly losing whatever edge Marcus had honed in him.
He needed to refocus himself. Despite a few impulsive actions, he had allowed his general demeanor when dealing with people to become passive, falling into old habits. Life had been happening to Dan, rather than the other way around. Reverting to form was a natural consequence of the stress he’d been under lately, but the constant barrage of of events was no excuse. This wasn’t what he had promised himself, when he’d decided to seize this new start in life.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. He’d identified the problem. Now he just needed to solve it.
“I should spar with Graham again,” Dan said aloud. “Its been too long since I’ve gotten my ass kicked.”
Abby snorted. Whatever her worries were about Dan’s state of mind, they seemed to dim after that comment.
“You’ll probably get your wish,” she informed him primly. “Connor and Freya are both on their way over. I got their text around the time that you exploded. Speaking of which.” She gestured to her surroundings, covered in a vast assortment of papers. “What the hell happened here?”
“I’m not rightly sure,” Dan admitted, scooping up the closest page. Abby mirrored the movement, grabbing her own bundle and quickly leafing through it. If Dan’s idea had worked, these documents should be related to the People. He doubted that the silvery orb was filled with random bits of paper.
Dan’s page was covered in what looked like a political manifesto. We fight to regain the sovereignty that was stolen from humanity by the advent of upgrade technology, it read. To free the People from the tyranny of the frightened minority. To overcome the artificial limits placed on our potential. To strike back at those who rewarded our service with lies and betrayal.
“This reads like the ramblings of a crazy person,” Dan observed, turning to his girlfriend. “What does yours…” His voice trailed slowly off as he noted her pale face and wide eyes .
“Where did you find these?” she whispered, staring at the page in her hand.
Her voice was as serious as it had ever been, and he didn’t hesitate to respond, “T-space. Actually, hold on.” His veil pulled itself free of his skin, and wrapped around his eyes like goggles. With a mental twist, he gazed into the Gap.
“There’s more there,” he told Abby, unable to contain his excitement. His idea had worked! Partially. He hadn’t predicted the violent reaction, but t-space was currently housing a studio apartment’s worth of stuff. Documents and hard drives and what looked like old floppy disks. Also, a few small, crystalline objects that Dan assumed was some kind of technology that he hadn’t seen yet.
“We have to tell Mama Ana,” Abby said immediately. “Do you know what this is? This is mmph!”
Dan’s hand interrupted her, quickly darting up to cover her mouth. “We are being listened in on, remember?” he said carefully. He gently pulled the bundle of papers out of Abby’s hands and flourished it. “Now, I’ve got a pretty good idea how important some of this stuff is, and I plan to hand it over to your grandmother eventually, but only after securing some assurances from her.” He punctuated his final sentence with a meaningful tilt of his head.
Abby’s eyebrows slowly climbed into her hairline. Her jaw was tense beneath his hands, and remained so as he pulled away. He met her eyes, trying his best to project his earnest feelings.
“I need this leverage, Abs. I won’t let that woman hold me in contempt for the rest of our lives. If she wants the information I can give her, she’ll have to make a deal with me.”
She stared at him for a long few seconds. Then, hesitantly, nodded.
Dan released a sigh of relief, then glanced down at the mess on the floor. “Well, if Connor and Freya will be here soon, we should clean this place up. I really don’t want to get them involved in this particular mess.”
Dan moved to follow his own plan, but a dainty hand locked around his arm.
“Danny.” Abby paused, her hand gripping tighter around his sleeve. Her lips quivered uncertainly, her eyes glistened, then hardened. She fished about the floor with her free hand, snagging a loose sheet of paper. She forcefully spun Dan around, and shoved the paper against his back, using him like a clipboard. He felt the blunt tip of a pen run across his shoulders and down his spine, before she spun him back ’round and thrust the page into his hand.
“Promise me that you’ll turn those papers over once Grandma agrees to your demands,” it read in a hasty scrawl. “They killed my parents. PROMISE ME!”
Her finger tapped the final line emphatically. Dan glanced at her, seeing someone scared and uncertain and determined. He smiled, cupping her cheek.
“I promise.”
Connor and Freya arrived within the hour. Abby had run about the house, straightening what needed to be straightened, while Dan packed away the documents he’d pilfered from the People. He put them all into a cardboard box, then dumped them back into the Gap. He figured that if Granny Goodness couldn’t get to them before, then she couldn’t get to them now. There was nowhere in his house that could say the same.
He was half-tempted to dump them on Marcus’s space station, but the thought of visiting that empty derelict sent a shiver down his spine. Returning there felt wrong now, somehow. Like a violation of something sacred. Like trodding over a grave. Whatever the feeling was, he would save pondering on it for later.
“Thanks for coming, you two,” Dan greeted, opening his front door wide.
Connor was dressed as casually as Dan had ever seen him, wearing the uniform that one might expect in an obscenely expensive prep school. It was probably the boy’s school uniform. Silently, Dan wondered whether the younger man owned a single pair of cargo shorts.
Freya looked much more sensible, in a simple blouse and jeans. She smiled politely at Dan, thanking him for inviting the pair to his home.
“You two are always welcome,” Dan said amicably, a little surprised to find that he actually meant it. “Though I admit, this wasn’t purely a social call. I need some advice, and I feel like the two of you are in a good position to give it.”
Connor puffed up like a turkey in mating season. “I’m always happy to give advice to those who need it,” he announced magnanimously, putting his hand over his heart, “and you, Newman, strike me as the sort of man who is in perpetual need.”
“We’re sparring again, before you leave,” Dan replied. “I’m gonna put your ass into the grass, mano a mano. I won’t need my upgrade for that.”
His reply, rather than triggering another sharp retort, drew a grimace from the younger man.
“About that,” Connor said, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin. “Perhaps you could give me some advice of your own? I seem to be at a bit of an impasse with my upgrade options. I could use a third and fourth opinion.”
“You’re asking Danny for advice?” Abby piped up, elbowing Dan in the ribs with a sly grin. “Things must be serious. Come on in, I’ll make some coffee and we’ll all chat.”