The Law of Averages

Chapter 35

Dan nervously clutched an iron skillet, twirling it slightly within his hand. Abby stood across from him cheerfully encouraging him while nursing a cup of coffee. They had relocated to her living room to experiment with his power, as it was the most open area in her house. The couch had been pushed back against the wall, and her recliner was currently in the hallway. There was plenty of free space available.

Dan licked his dry lips and said, "Alright, I think I'm ready."

All he had to do was will himself somewhere else. Simple and easy. He'd done it a hundred times before. Nothing to be nervous about.

Abby thrust her fist into the air and cried, "You can do it!"

The exuberant movement tipped her coffee cup in just the wrong way, splashing hot liquid onto her wrist. Abby yelped, frantically blowing on her wrist. The motion was so exaggerated that Dan couldn't help but fall into snickering laughter. She gave him a glare as she set her cup aside.

"Glad to see my misfortune entertains you so," she sniped, turning up her nose.

Dan nodded shamelessly. "It really does."

He felt his fear rapidly draining away. It was almost impossible for him to remain tense around Abby. Something about the girl, her aura or her demeanour or maybe the fact that she seemed to leak good cheer, something about her always relaxed him. Suddenly, the idea that he should fear his own power seemed ludicrous.

Right. To work, then.

"For the first test I think I'll—"

"Oh! Oh oh oh, wait!" Abby exclaimed abruptly. Dan jolted at the interruption, but she quickly rushed out of the room without explanation. A clamor emerged from deeper within the house, somewhere in the region of Abby's bedroom. She emerged moments later, brandishing a large and clunky tape recorder.

"I've always wanted to use this," Abby said, wiggling the device. "This was grandpa's, and I'd like to think that he'd approve of these experiments."

Dan shrugged noncommittally. "As you like."

With a grin, Abby clicked it on.

"This is Abby Summers and Daniel Newman, testing the mechanics of Mr. Newman's natural power," she intoned. "For our first test—"

She thrust the recorder at Dan's face.

He leaned forward, rolling his eyes. "For the first test I'll just be dropping into the Gap without a specific destination in mind."

Abby's eyes widened. "You can do that!?"

"I don't see why not," Dan replied with a shrug. "The way I see it, it'll be safer I'm just hanging out there without moving around."

"Movement can often trigger a predatory response," Abby agreed.

Dan twitched.

"Ok. Ok." He bounced up and down a few times, loosening his shoulders and neck. The pan whooshed through the air as Dan swung it experimentally.

"Ok. I got this."

...

Abby watched him expectantly.

Dan huffed.

"Doooo you want some pads?" she asked earnestely. "I used to rollerblade a bit; I think I've got my old safety—"

"I'm going in!" Dan announced before she could further damage his pride.

He slammed his eyes shut and remembered that vast empty not-space. For the first time, he willed himself there, into the void. A sense of weightlessness overtook him, the quiet but present ambient sounds of Abby's neighborhood vanished, and the lingering warmth of her home transformed into a cold numbness.

Dan opened his eyes.

Empty. That was the first word that came to mind. Dan hung suspended in a vast nothingness, neither floor below nor sky above. Empty, in a way that space itself did not match. There were no stars here, no planets, no bits of space dust or shimmering nebula, no distant galaxies twirling through eternity.

There was nothing, yet still Dan saw. There was no light in this place, no sound, nor sense of touch. Dan suspected that the physics needed for such things didn't exist in this reality. It was a feeling, ineffable and certain.

There were things hiding in the not-darkness beyond him, hovering at the edge of his awareness. They were alive, and they were watching him. He knew it in his bones, in his heart, in his soul. He couldn't describe them, they defied description itself, but he knew their presence with a conviction that disturbed him.

He put it out of mind; those thoughts could be examined later. More importantly, the beings lingered in the distance. Dan was in no immediate danger. Whatever interest they had in him seemed passing at best, at least for now.

How... long had he been here? Minutes, at the least. Simply orienting himself in this strange place had taken some time. Time must flow differently here, if it existed at all. What was it that Marcus had said about the Gap?

No rules, no physics, no reality at all. Only what we bring with us. Only what we expect.

Come to think of it, how was he breathing?

The thought came suddenly. Awareness struck him: there was no air here.

Dan didn't panic. He was getting pretty good at that; a product of constant practice. He remained calm, he remained still. His heartbeat was steady, thump thump thump, without a trace of stress.

He was fine, he had been fine, he would continue to be fine. Just don't think about it. He'd experienced stranger things.

One of the distant not-beings moved slightly, metaphorically drifting in his direction before steadying itself.

Dan ignored it.

He distracted himself by looking around once more. The... landscape, for a lack of a better word, had to overlap with his own reality somehow. He remembered the first (and only) time that he'd teleported with his eyes open. That feeling of movement, of fighting inertia. Some part of Dan, some innate aspect or required secondary power, allowed him to unconsciously navigate this place. To get from point A to point B with a mental picture being the only input.

It had to be unconscious, because he sure as shit had no sense of direction at the moment.

His power was his guide. It... kept him safe in this horrible place.

Dan 'looked' down at himself. His body was shrouded by the watery veil of energy that he had always visualized his power as. It clung to him, over his clothes, around the iron skillet still clutched in his hand. It was comforting to see. His power. It belonged to him. It obeyed him. A thing to embrace, not to fear.

The longer he remained in the Gap, the calmer he became. There was no danger for him here. The monsters in the dark could not harm him. His power was here, with him, always. He could be gone in an instant. Safe, untouched. It was a part of him, and there was nothing that could take it away. A veil between him and danger.

Why had that been so difficult to see before now?

"I want to go back," Dan spoke into the void.

His veil obeyed, a ripple of energy echoing outwards from its center. Where the wave passed, the world changed. Dan watched closely, watched this part of himself as it altered reality itself. The transition was smooth, one dimension fading into another rather than the shattering that it had always been in the past.

He found himself in Abby's living room once more, staring at his own hands with a sense of awe. He could no longer see his veil, but he felt it now, that energy ever-present inside of him.

"—gear stashed in the attic somewhere. It's bright pink but..." Abby blinked, pausing her rambling. "Danny? Did you just flicker in place?"

Dan glanced up at her, startled out of his own epiphany. "What?"

"You just, sorta..." Abby wiggled both hands at him. "glitched out."

"I uh—" Dan scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I guess that confirms that time doesn't run parallel in the Gap."

Abby processed the sentence, then lit up with a smile. "It worked?"

"In and out, without a problem," Dan confirmed with a nod.

"That's great!" she exclaimed.

Almost as an afterthought, she brought the recorder to her lips. "Experiment one successful. Subject entered and exited t-space without injury."

"T-space?"

Abby laughed sheepishly. "The Gap Between Worlds just sounds so pretentious. Nothing against that Marcus guy, but his naming sense is kinda awful."

Like calling Dan's veil eMergy, and Mercury Energy. Like naming his VR helmet a Neuralyzer.

Dan snickered. "T-space huh? Marcus would blow a gasket if he heard. I love it."

"Naturally," Abby replied, vainly fanning herself. "It was my idea, after all."

Dan rolled his eyes.

"Sooooo, how was it?" she asked, bouncing excitedly over to him.

Dan sighed, searching his vocabulary for an accurate description.

"Eerie," he decided. "Really fucking eerie."

Abby's face fell.

"Not frightening, exactly," Dan quickly corrected. "Just really creepy in a distinctly supernatural way."

She hesitantly put her hand on his arm. "But you're okay, right?"

Whew. What a loaded question. In the past few months he had been:

Kidnapped from his home dimension.

Granted unfettered access to what appeared to be a dimensional variant of the Warp.

Confronted with some really unpleasant truths about himself.

Thrown into a disaster simulation where he experienced what it was like to burn to death.

Brought face to face with an old woman who could probably kill him with her pinky.

But, most importantly, he had found more confidence and self-respect here than he'd ever had in his old life. Having a pretty girl as a best friend was a great help on that front.

All in all...

Dan flashed a thumbs up. "I'm great."

"Oh." Abby smiled. "Good!"

They sort of stared at each other for a moment. Dan passed over her skillet, awkwardly breaking the silence.

"I don't think I need this anymore, by the way."

"Ah that's— Good! Ok!" Abby clapped her hands together, refocusing the mood. "What's next?"

"Distance," Dan replied quickly, shaking off the lingering awkwardness. "The G— er, t-space overlaps with this dimension, I think, at least a little bit. I wanna make a jump to the Pearson and watch what happens."

"Makes sense, I guess," Abby said with a shrug. She could only be so involved in this process. Dan was utterly incapable of describing... t-space, a fact that he'd already shared with her before they'd even begun. The words simply didn't exist. Hell, the concepts didn't even exist. She was morale support, at best, and would cheer on whatever decision he made.

"Say hi to Nan for me," she concluded, with a pat on Dan's back.

Dan snapped off a salute. "Yes ma'am."

His veil surged out from within him, wrapping around his body. Reality rippled, and the waves carried him into the void.

He hovered there for a time, simply acclimating himself once more to the odd feeling of nothingness. There was no air to breathe or feel, no gravity, no light, no frame of reference to orient himself. Just a strange numbness and a sense of perception that he couldn't begin to understand.

That was fine. His power knew the way. With a thought, he willed himself elsewhere.

Something tugged at him and he was pulled through the void. It was odd enough that he could even perceive such a thing in this place, to say nothing of estimating how fast or how far he traveled.

This was not the best plan he'd ever come up with. With a sense of amused resignation, Dan decided to simply enjoy the ride. The feeling was somewhere between a roller coaster and a water slide, fast and smooth and stable, with just enough speed to twinge at his nerves. Dan couldn't say for certain how long he moved; time felt so warped that he struggled to even count the seconds.

But he emerged, safe and sound, in the lobby of the Pearson. His veil parted and withdrew, pulling back into himself, and reality settled into place with nary a whisper.

Save for the booming voice of a large mustachioed police officer.

"Mister Newman, what a wonderful coincidence! I was just speaking to the lovely Miss Margaret about you!" A meaty hand clapped down onto his shoulder, nearly knocking Dan off his feet. The same hand steadied him, then spun him around. He came face to face with a man that he'd been proactively dodging for weeks.

Officer Gregoir Pierre-Louise, the blonde French Viking. His long hair was neatly braided against his skull and swept backwards. His magnificent horseshoe mustache hung down past his jaw, waxed to perfection. Biceps thicker than Dan's thighs bulged out of his police uniform, and the wooden floor seemed to creak beneath his weight. The force of this man's personality was a physical thing, an oncoming train that Dan could not possibly withstand.

He smiled weakly. "Hi there, officer. Long time no see."