The Law of Averages

Chapter 34

They decided to table the discussion of power training for later as a concession to Dan's reluctance. Of course, Abby's definition of tabling a discussion was to immediately hold an impromptu lecture on the differences between powers, upgrades, and mutations. Dan couldn't help but be a little amused despite her blatant attempts at manipulation.

"They were called radiological phenomenon at first," Abby recited sternly, wearing the expression of a haughty taskmaster. She slapped her riding crop against a whiteboard where the word radiological was underlined. From where she had produced said items, Dan had no idea.

Abby continued, "The way they manifested was unique to each person, without any sort of definable pattern. That said, there were plenty of people who had an affinity to their particular power. It was these who discovered that powers could grow."

Dan frowned. "Affinity?"

"Eh, maybe affinity is the wrong word," Abby said, temporarily dropping character. She wiggled her hand in a so-so gesture. "More like... expectations? They saw what their powers did and said 'This could be more.'. Grandma called it conceptualization but I think affinity rolls off the tongue better."

"That's not something I've ever heard of before." Which was concerning, because Marcus had given him the lowdown on powers months ago.

Abby scrunched up her face. "Well, it's not all that relevant these days. Cosmic radiation isn't naturally occurring on Earth, after all. The only way to acquire a 'natural' power anymore is to create the stuff yourself and take a bath in it."

After a moment's pause, she added, "Or, apparently, to be abducted from your home universe."

She seemed to consider the oddity of that statement, before shrugging it off and continuing. "Anyway, it's not widely spread information anymore, and for good reason. Fiddling with any sort of radiation without a license is super illegal, and the stuff fades naturally within a few decades. The only people nowadays who have natural powers are criminals, or the occasional unfortunate bystander, and neither should have this sort of information. No need to hand out more ways to disrupt society.

"But I'm getting off track!" she exclaimed suddenly. She coughed into her fist, cleared her throat, and reshuffled her body language. The stern teacher reappeared, an image slightly sullied by the sweatpants and fuzzy slippers.

"The best example of affinity"—The word was accompanied by a glare towards Dan, as if daring him to challenge it—"is the serial killer Cannibal."

"Your best example is a serial killer?" Dan asked flatly.

"Jeffrey Saide was twenty-three years old when he received his powers," Abby continued, raising her voice in lieu of answering Dan's question. "It was the late fifties then, and he was one of the last generations to be empowered by the aftermath of the White Sands disaster. Being a law-abiding citizen at the time, he immediately reported himself to the government and had his power evaluated and registered. His stomach, it was discovered, was capable of digesting just about anything that found its way inside of it."

Dan cringed. "And they named him Cannibal?"

"Oh, no, that came later. After he started eating people," Abby said frankly.

"Yikes."

Abby shrugged. "His power seemed harmless at first. He could eat glass, or metal, or dirt, and somehow live off of it, but that's nothing to write home about. It wasn't like it made him more dangerous or anything. They sent him home with a pat on the back and a thumbs up for doing his civic duty."

Dan could see the story play out in his head. He slapped a hand over his face. "It totally made him more dangerous, didn't it?"

"Power testing isn't an exact science, especially back then," Abby admitted sheepishly, as if she were ashamed of her dimension's carelessness. "That said, most agree that the power he originally displayed was only superficially similar to that which he became known for. Every time he ate parts of a human, and only a human, he grew stronger and faster and tougher. It got to the point where his victims numbered in the thousands spread all across the country."

Once again, Dan reflected how horrifying this new reality could be. Though, something about the story bothered him.

"Why only humans?" he asked.

Abby grinned at the question. "And that, Mr. Newman, goes back to affinity. Nobody really knows if Mr. Saide had cannibalistic tendencies before he gained his power, or if the power somehow pushed him into it, but in reality it doesn't matter. At some point he decided that his power, which allowed him to extract nutrients from something as inedible as steel, should be vastly more effective on things which actually provided sustenance. I'm not a crazy person, so I can't begin to imagine why he fixated on fellow humans, but that's the way things turned out."

"...That's it?" Dan asked in bewilderment.

Abby paused. "What do you mean?"

"He just believed it, and his power adjusted itself to suit him?" Dan clarified, trying to keep the disbelief out of his voice. It was no wonder why Marcus had never mentioned this theory. The explanation seemed utterly illogical if that was all there was to it.

"Obviously it wasn't that simple," Abby said, her words accompanied by an exaggerated eye-roll.

Oh. Good.

"It probably took some time for him to achieve the proper focus required for his power to adjust itself. The specific mindset needed is not one that just anyone can achieve."

Oh. Dang. That sounded really implausible.

Not... impossible, though. Keeping in mind how he arrived on this world.

Well, she was the native here, not to mention the education she would have recieved from her insanely wealthy family. She should know better than him. The theory sounded odd, but Dan had seen some weird shit these past few months. He could... tentatively accept it. Maybe. Was this really all that odd, in the grand scheme of things?

But first, a question needed answering. Just in case.

"Who taught you this stuff, Abbs?"

"Mama Ana did," Abby replied cheerfully. "When I was a kid, she would tell me all sorts of stories from the old days."

Dan felt a cold shiver run down his back. Of course Granny Terminator discussed serial killers with her young granddaughter. How could that possibly be an inappropriate topic?

He smiled weakly. "She used this method herself?"

A hesitant nod. Abby bit her lip, brows furrowing.

"Yyyyess? Sort of? The way grandma explained it was like... it wasn't intentional. She simply had certain expectations of her power, and it seemed to conform itself to those expectations over time. Like, it just seemed to keep growing as she found more and more ways to use it. By the time she realized it was happening, the power she started with was almost unrecognizable."

"What even is her power?" Dan probed eagerly.

Much to his dismay, Abby shrugged. "No clue."

Dan's jaw dropped. "She never told you!?"

"Grandma says a secret between two people isn't a secret anymore," Abby replied with a firm nod. "She has enemies— Um, had enemies. I'm not... actually sure how many are still around. Either way, Mama Ana doesn't want to give whoever is left any sort of advantage over her. I don't think anyone knows the details of her power, though there are plenty of guesses. We've actually got a betting pool going, within the family."

Dan slapped a hand over his face.

"Anyway, moving on!" Abby cried, resuming her teacher's pose. Her riding crop smacked against the word Upgrades on her whiteboard.

Dan made to protest—This topic seemed important!—but Abby plowed gamely onward.

"The concept of upgrades came about from a government-funded think tank in the fifties," Abby continued. "The idea was simple: What if they could stop powers from naturally occurring."

"Why would—" Dan was interrupted by Abby's crop slapping the table.

He rolled his eyes, and raised his hand. "Why would they want that?"

Abby huffed impatiently. "Think, Danny. You can't just hand out superpowers and expect people to behave themselves! Between the villainous gangs and the idiotic vigilantes, entire cities were being torn apart. It needed to be stopped."

"No, that's—" Dan winced. It had taken a while, but he had accepted that a world filled with randomized powers would probably end poorly. That was fine; he could be practical. Few people could be trusted to handle power, especially when the granted power seemed utterly arbitrary.

Which lead to Dan's question.

"Why would they try to prevent powers from naturally occurring," Dan asked slowly, "rather than influence the type of power that occurred?"

Abby stared blankly.

"You've just described an upgrade," she informed him. She spoke in the way a parent might, when explaining to their child why they shouldn't eat dirt.

But Dan was not dissuaded.

"I don't think I have," he replied stubbornly.

"You have! You absolutely have!" she exclaimed in frustration. Her free hand tugged at her hair and began winding it through her fingers. "To influence the type of power manifested, that's literally what upgrades do!"

"Then why can't upgrades grow in power?" Dan asked smugly. He crossed his arms across his chest and smiled up at Abby.

She fumbled for a moment, searching for a reasonable answer on the spot, before visibly giving up. With a harrumph, she whacked Dan's shoulder with her crop. He yelped, and she grinned triumphantly.

"As I was saying, upgrades were the product of a government think tank in the fifties. They observed that once a person manifested a power, cosmic radiation no longer had an effect on them. In order to stem the tide of destructive powers, they developed a device that imprinted a single, specific, and most importantly, weak power on anyone who was exposed to it."

Dan was flabbergasted at Abby's shamelessness, as she continued to speak as if nothing had happened.

"Though the first upgrade publicly available was a simple form of climate control, there have been tremendous advances in the half-century since then. Even so, despite having the highest quality upgrades available, SPEAR teams are nearly always outclassed by villains in terms of sheer power."

She glared down at him imperiously, brandishing the riding crop. "Why do you think that is, Mr. Newman?"

Dan, eyeing her weapon, decided discretion was the better part of valor.

He quickly answered, "Because anyone dangerous enough to have a SPEAR team called on him has either a mutation or a natural power."

Abby beamed.

"Not subtle, Abby," Dan informed her.

"AND FINALLY, WE HAVE MUTATIONS!" Abby bellowed over Dan. "When an upgrade mutates, it vastly exceeds some part of its standard limits. We talked before about Cold Star, remember?"

"When we first met, yeah," Dan acknowledged, thinking back. It felt like years had passed since then.

"Right, Cold Star was a mutate," Abby said frankly. "The climate control upgrade he recieved functioned by absorbing and expelling heat. It mutated such that there was no limit on the amount of heat he could absorb."

"Right, he froze one of the Great Lakes. I remember," Dan replied. He ran a hand through his hair in wonder at the achievement. What a scary fellow.

Also crazy.

Abby nodded at his words. "Mutates are often extremely powerful, but they are always confined within the bounds of their upgrade. No matter how Cold Star's upgrade mutated, he never would have been capable of broadening the scope of his power like Cannibal was able to."

"In summary," Dan recited blandly, "natural powers are awesome."

"Yes!" Abby shouted, her arms flying over her head.

"And you think I should experiment with my power," Dan continued.

"Absolutely!"

"Despite the eldritch abominations waiting for me on the other side of reality."

"Danny, we've been over this." Abby gave him an exasperated look. "You use your power all the time."

"Just to teleport! I already know that it's safe!" He crossed his arms defensively.

Abby sighed. "Why is it safe?"

"What?" Dan frowned at the question. Why is his teleportation safe? Because he's been doing it for months! Of course it's safe!

"You teleport by dropping into that Gap Between Worlds, right? So... you're going into it every single time you teleport. That's, like, literally your power. The ability to enter and exit this other dimension at will."

Abby spoke slowly, walking him through her thought process. She hadn't said anything that Dan didn't know, but to hear it laid out in such a way was profoundly disturbing to him. Her final question was one that he had been willfully ignoring.

"Why do you think that it's safe?"

It was safe because he assumed that it was safe. He didn't think about it, he gave it no consideration at all. It was a fact, undisputed, a given. He expected it to be safe, and so it was safe.

That's what Abby was hinting at, what Anastasia Summers proclaimed as truth.

Dan did not like the implications.

Because, while he had considered his teleportation to be utterly straightforward at the start of this conversation, now he was no longer certain. Which was a problem if Abby was right.

Was he gonna get eaten the next time he teleported just because he thought it was a possibility now? That couldn't be the way it worked.

Or maybe he would be fine because he thought it couldn't work that way?

Shit! Why was this suddenly so complicated? The idea was in his head now, stuck like glue. If it somehow effected his ability to teleport, he needed to know.

Dan liked his newfound freedom.

He liked being able to move around at will.

He liked it a lot.

He... wasn't willing to give it up.

Abby watched as the gears turned in his head, as the doubts crept in and his courage found a hold. The manipulative minx smiled expectantly even as he scowled at her.

Dan sighed.

"You win."