The Law of Averages

Chapter 60

"Are you sure that you made yourself sane, uh, again?" Dan queried incredulously, interrupting Marcus's story. The pair had moved away from the laboratory, and into what passed for the station's mess hall.

"Don't be ridiculous, Daniel," Marcus scoffed. "I have been meddling with my own mind for decades! It's just a little bit of brain surgery; no need to get your panties in a bunch!"

"That explains quite a bit, actually" Dan muttered to himself. Louder, he asked, "So you edited your own memories to prove that the Gap changes according to perception?"

"No," Marcus denied, drawing out the word. "I edited my memory as a matter of course. That it helped me develop a working theory was a happy coincidence."

Dan sighed into his hands. "Of course."

Marcus nodded with affirmation. "Indeed! Now, as I was saying—"

"No." Dan held up his hand. "It's fine. I don't want to hear any more of the insanity that you've engaged in."

"Everything I do is perfectly safe," Marcus protested vehemently.

"Fine," Dan agreed, rubbing his brow. "I don't need to hear about the perfectly safe insanity that you've engaged in. You say you've figured out how the Gap works? Okay. I believe you. I'm happy that you're happy."

"Well, that's... good to hear." Marcus sounded bewildered that Dan wasn't interested in the gritty details of his experiments. The odds of the old man creating conflicting personalities within himself just to argue against rose higher in Dan's mind.

"Your message said that you needed my help with something, and that you could help me in return. So. I've got some questions for you." Dan reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded slip of paper. He opened it, and squinted down at Abby's handwriting. "Let's start with an easy one. How long have you been bugging me?"

Marcus blinked in confusion. "Well that's awfully subjective, Daniel, but I suppose I could make the case that I've bugged you for as long as we've known each other." He paused, lost in thought. "Though that could serve as an excellent question for confirming one's identity in case of a shapeshifter or robotic replacement. Well done, Daniel."

Dan reeled back. "Is that likely!?" He paused, then shook his head. "Nevermind. I don't wanna know. And you know that's not what I was asking."

Marcus spread his hands helplessly. "What is it that you want me to say, Daniel? Of course I've been monitoring you. With your tendency to blunder into high-risk situations, I assumed that I'd need to mount a rescue at some point in the future."

"Your concern is overwhelming," Dan said dryly. "How are you keeping track of me?"

Marcus stared at him in bewilderment. "You have a mobile phone, Daniel. One that I gave you. It has GPS tracking." He shrugged. "I ping your location every now and then, to make sure you aren't locked up somewhere."

Dan slowly processed this.

"I'm an idiot," he groaned to himself.

"Frequently," Marcus agreed with enthusiasm.

Dan ignored the man, instead asking, "So I guess you've been monitoring my phone calls as well?" What few he had made. Dan preferred face to face conversations, and his power generally made that desire trivial to achieve. He felt pleased at the idea that his habits might have limited Marcus's snooping.

But the old man looked disgusted. "I am not a voyeur, Daniel! I do not need to know what sort of vulgarity you children engage in these days!"

Dan flushed. "That's not the point! And phones have microphones! I don't want you spying on my conversations!"

"I have far more interesting ways to spend my time, Daniel, than monitoring your social activity," Marcus remarked, scuffing his nails against his lab coat.

"The timing of your text was remarkably on point," Dan replied, narrowing his eyes. "I find it odd that the moment I mentioned to Abby that I'd be asking for your help, you send me a message offering your help!"

Marcus brightened, looking immensely pleased. "Truly? That is exceptional timing! Were you my enemy, I would certainly claim credit for that coincidence, but as we are friends, I shall not."

"How'd you know I needed your help?" Dan demanded, caught off-guard by the constant denials.

Marcus sighed in grandfatherly disappointment. "When do you not need my help, Daniel?"

The problem with befriending a mad scientist, Daniel realized, was that you could never tell where appropriate caution ended and paranoia began. He was all but convinced that Marcus had a computer laying around somewhere, devoted entirely to recording every interaction that Daniel ever held. On the other hand, the old man sounded entirely genuine in his claims that he had better things to do than spy on Dan.

Which probably meant that the computer existed, but Marcus hadn't had the time to go through it yet. Fine. Dan could deal with that.

He bit down his urge to scream. "Be right back."

With a blink of his eyes, he appeared inside his old quarters. Dan scooped up the melted collar off his cot, blinked again, and reappeared in front of Marcus. He twirled the chunk of metal, sending it clattering onto the counter.

Marcus eyed it with curiosity at first, but his brow furrowed as he took a closer look. The old scientist pulled a pen out of his front pocket, and used the tip of it to spin the broken device in a slow circle. He hummed to himself, hooking one of the prongs and drawing the collar closer. Broken pieces of internal circuitry poked out of the cracks in the metal, and the scientist examined them with a gimlet eye.

"What a malevolent little thing," Marcus murmured. "Where did you find it, Daniel?"

"Inside a tree," Daniel summarized simply, "on the border of what was suspected to be a villain attack. Whoever, whatever, melted that collar also burned down a couple hundred thousand acres of forest a few years back. It's still hot, Marcus."

The scientist pressed the back of his hand against the deformed section of the collar, quickly pulling it away with a hiss. "So it is. Interesting."

Dan waited, but no further comment was made. Marcus continued to curiously prod at the collar, hemming and hawing under his breath.

"Well?" Dan demanded impatiently.

Marcus's gaze swiveled to him. "Well what? I only just started my investigation. I haven't even taken it apart yet!"

Dan slumped. "So you don't know what it is?"

"As hard as it is to believe, I do not know everything," Marcus replied acidly. Dan raised both hands apologetically, and Marcus huffed. After a moment, he added, "Though I can guess the purpose to this device."

"It's a torture collar," Dan informed him. "I know that already. One of my police contacts has seen one before. A villain used it during a kidnapping." He paused. "Didn't work too well, apparently. The officer that it was used on was too stubborn to feel pain."

"That is remarkable, all things considered," Marcus acknowledged, still staring at the collar. "This device appears to directly stimulate the spinal nerves. The pain would have been immense. That said, causing pain is merely what it does. Its purpose, I suspect, is to induce power growth."

"What." Dan's voice was flat. That almost sounded like a good thing. "You're telling me that this is some kind of benevolent torture collar?"

"No, no, of course not," Marcus replied, waving off Dan's question. "I'm certain that whoever was subjected to this was quite unwilling. Regardless, the method might actually be effective, given what I've learned about powers. Desperation is a powerful motivator indeed."

"That's... horrible," Dan said quietly. Though not surprising. His own amorphous fears of abduction had given him a healthy dose of cynicism. Even back home, there existed people who did messed up shit for entirely inadequate reasons. Superpowers would have only exacerbated those desires. With great power came great assholes.

"There have always been clandestine groups interested in natural powers," Marcus said gravely. His face was withdrawn and serious, his gaze still lingered on the collar. "In my prime, I could have been considered a member of one. Our purpose, however, was a benevolent one." He raised the collar into the air, dangling it off the corner of his pen. "I doubt that whoever created this abomination is interested in benevolence. I'd advise you to leave this be, Daniel."

Dan frowned, leaning against the marble counter top. "I wasn't planning on doing much," he protested. "I just need to know if it's safe to hand the thing over. The feds were looking into this shit." He gestured at the collar. "I can't just turn it in to my local FBI Field Office. That seems like a great way to invite an investigation onto my head."

"That would be stupid," Marcus agreed sagely. "I'm surprised it wasn't your first thought." He sounded pleased. "You're growing up, Daniel!"

"Fuck you," Dan replied immediately, trying to shove the older man.

Marcus barely paid him any mind, simply leaning out of reach. He slid the collar down his pen, to settle against his wrist. The old man prodded the inward facing prongs with care. His playful mood waned into sad nostalgia.

"Over and over again, people manage to disappoint me," he murmured softly. "Always searching for power."

Dan watched the old man carefully. This was the perfect time for the old man to fall into an old memory. Had he truly fixed himself?

But his fears remained unfounded. Instead, Marcus turned to Dan, smiling wistfully.

"Have I ever told you about my younger years?" the scientist asked curiously. A rhetorical question, Dan was certain. Marcus had as close to perfect memory as a person could get. Still, if he felt like opening up a little, Dan would humor him.

Dan shook his head. "You've been infuriatingly vague on that account."

"And I will continue to do so," Marcus admitted, a hint of humor slipping into his voice, "until such time that it no longer amuses me."

"I'd expect nothing less," Dan replied dryly.

Marcus dipped his arm, letting the collar clatter back on to the counter. With a sigh, he ran a hand through his wispy white hair. "We had the best of intentions, you understand? In the beginning. Most do, I suspect."

He paused, visibly deliberating over what to share. "We had an impossible idea. Utterly insane. Except, well," Marcus shrugged helplessly. "superpowers. The possibilities seemed endless. We were young and arrogant and so very naive. We assumed that with brilliance, came wisdom. We assumed that our ideas were self-evident, that, once enlightened, all would work towards the betterment of mankind."

He shook his head sadly. "We were wrong."

And with those words, it all clicked into place. "You're talking about the genius upgrades," Dan said with slowly dawning horror. "You... made them. You tried to make people think like you."

"No!" Marcus denied immediately, his voice filled with passion. "That was never our intention! On the contrary, we wanted conflicting opinions! Only through honest discourse can one determine what is true!"

"How'd that work out for you?" Dan asked pointedly. He had read enough history to know the answer. Whatever Marcus had attempted, it had failed spectacularly.

Marcus grimaced, almost flinching at the question. "Poorly. My design was flawed, imperfect. It gave inspiration but not restraint. None of us realized how one's goals could cloud the result. Every volunteer who received the upgrade, they were my peers, they agreed with our aims, but none of them were as devoted as we. It was for them, perhaps, a gesture of support. A professional courtesy. They believed in me, in what I was doing, but it was not their primary focus." The old man shook his head sadly. "It's a slow path towards obsession, Daniel. Each of them were experts in their field, already spending vast amounts of time pursuing specialist knowledge. After the upgrade took root, their passions grew to consume them entirely."

He trailed off with a frown, gnawing at the side of his cheek. "My closest colleague— He was upgraded shortly after his honeymoon. Completely and utterly smitten. Had I waited a month or two, his focus might have returned to our goals. Instead, his desire to ensure his family's future became his sole purpose. Locked in place for all time." Marcus shook his head. "But we were playing with that which we did not fully understand. Things were destined to go wrong, regardless."

"What was the point of it all?" Dan questioned quietly. "Why go to so much effort?"

"We were going to save the world!" Marcus exclaimed suddenly. His hands spread wide, manic and angry. "We were going to bring peace and understanding to all of humanity! What level of effort would you put in for such a goal, Daniel?" His face twisted into a snarl. "You cannot understand the calamity that we faced at the time. Society balanced on a razor's edge, on the verge of collapse! Mankind is not capable of wielding such power responsibly! Something had to be done!"

Dan cautiously watched the heaving old man. He needed time to process this, time away from Marcus, before either of them said something that they'd regret. This wasn't even his world; how pissed could he even be at Marcus for meddling with it? He needed to think.

Most importantly, he needed to get far the fuck away from this subject.

"We should postpone this conversation," Dan said, taking a slow step backwards. "You said you needed my help."

Marcus's face spasmed briefly, before easing itself. He let out a long breath, his whole body slouching in place. "Yes," he replied simply. The old man turned away, shuffling towards a nearby cabinet. He pulled it open, digging through various plates and cups. With a crash of ceramic, he withdrew a metal coin about the size of a silver dollar, and flicked it to Dan.

Dan caught the thing automatically. "What's this?"

"It's a device I built to monitor your power use," the aging scientist replied simply. "Keep it in your pocket for the next few weeks."

Dan threaded the coin between his fingers, scanning it for abnormalities. "It just looks like a coin."

"That's the point, Daniel," Marcus informed him wearily. None of the doctor's usual bite was present; the old man seemed exhausted.

"...Do you mind if I ask why?" Dan queried carefully, more concerned than ever about Marcus's state of mind. This didn't even seem like a result of mental meddling, so much as deeper unresolved issues. The man was in dire need of a therapist.

"My working theory is that the genius upgrade forms a more direct connection to the Gap than the human mind is capable of bearing," Marcus grumbled, crossing his arms. "It's pure... creativity. Perhaps the sum total of mankind's thoughts on the subject. We aren't built for that." His eyes met Dan's. "You, however, have gazed directly into the Gap multiple times. Not only on your trip to this dimension, but many times since. Yet here you stand, perfectly sane." He paused. "For a given definition of sane."—"Hey!"—"I believe your power shields you somehow."

Of course, Dan had done all of this before knowing it was supposed to drive him insane. Now that he did...

Dan considered it.

No.

His power kept him safe. He trusted it. Whether that trust was what empowered it to keep him safe was irrelevant. Circular reasoning was the best kind.

"So you're hoping to replicate the effect?" Dan asked, getting a nod from Marcus. "Fine. I'll do it."

Marcus nodded minutely, exhaustion still showing in every inch of his body. Dan hovered awkwardly, uncertain whether he should be concerned. The old man shook his head, waving the younger off.

"Go home Daniel. Be with your friends. Live your life." His wrinkled face cocked to the side. "And take that collar with you. Have your little friend pass it to her grandmother."

Dan's face lost its color.

"Oh yes," Marcus cackled, revitalizing himself through Dan's suffering, like some sort of psychotic vampiric empath. "I noticed that you visited Anastasia's home. Given that you aren't dead, she either approves of you, or completely disregards your existence." He grinned wildly. "Pray that it's the latter. But give her the collar, and keep my name out of it. She'll know what to do."

With one last hysterical laugh, the doctor sent him on his way.