The Law of Averages

Chapter 68

To say that Dan felt ecstatic in the days following The Date was to say that the sun was warm. The world was a brighter, happier place, and he felt like everything was coming up Daniel. Riding this wave of optimism and productivity, he set about accomplishing as many of his errands as possible.

The house was perfect, and it was going to be his. An impulsive decision, sure, but one that he was happy with. His bags were packed, but he wouldn't be finalizing the purchase until an inspection was completed. No sense in buying a house about to fall apart, after all. Margaret had recommended a reliable fellow, so Dan would hopefully have a home within the next week.

His Academy homework was done, all of it. It was fairly straightforward, all told, but the class itself remained informative. Another field trip was in the works, this time for urban rescue, but that was weeks away yet. Dan felt prepared for it, but had a few more ideas he needed to work on regarding his power.

He had sent Graham a fruit basket.

His last errand was of the more exotic variety: building his power. Meditation was his technique of choice, floating silently in the endless abyss of t-space, watching his veil move with his will. Expectation, Marcus had said, was the key to advancement. Expectation, and foundation. Powers needed the rules, the structures, that a conscious mind could give. The Gap was change, and powers were the manifestation of that change, given form and function by sentient thoughts.

So, practice was needed. Both to build his familiarity, and to codify the mechanics of his power. Once he'd hammered out the rules, then he'd work on breaking them.

His veil flicked out like a whip of water, needle-thin and churning. It was only a portion, a tiny percent of the whole, tearing through not-space as fast as Dan could picture it. His veil drained away as the thread extended, depleting faster and faster. He could feel it, if only vaguely, as it stretched to its limits. Like a phantom limb, less a sensation than a vague memory.

Eventually his pool ran dry, and the limb shuddered to a halt. Dan examined his current limit, eyeballing the distance. It was difficult to judge, here in t-space. The laws of physics were... flimsy, at best, existing only when Dan remembered that they existed, or expected them to. It was a distinctly odd experience, to abide in such a malleable reality. Perhaps it was that, which drove men mad, an inability to safely assimilate the chaos inherent to the Gap. Dan could not really feel it, himself. His power was an aegis against all that would harm him, including whatever insanity lurked in the darkness.

But he was losing focus. The filament of his veil extended for roughly two hundred feet, taut and narrow. Dan could feel— not strain, exactly, but rather an emptiness around him. Strangely, he still felt a slight hum of power from inside himself. His veil, that excess energy outside his body, was stretched to its limits. Within him, however, more remained. An inner reservoir.

Well, that only made sense. He was teleporting himself, too, each time he entered t-space. Meaning that his actual transportation limit was double his mass. Could he....? Could he pull from that reservoir?

No. No no no, that was a terrible idea, best saved for life and death emergencies. Dan would not be exploring that option. The last thing he wanted was to arrive at his destination missing a lung or something equally important.

With a mental tug the tendril retracted, snapping back around Dan and collapsing into the familiar sight of his veil. Another minor exertion of will, and the world flickered back into existence. Dan stood in Abby's living room, breathing easily, wearing a smile on his face.

"Welcome back!" an angelic voice greeted him.

Dan turned to meet Abby as she skipped over to him, his grin widening when she flung herself into his embrace. His girlfriend (and that thought still gave him a thrill) wrapped both her arms around his neck, then planted a quick kiss on his cheek. Her face then darted back, avoiding Dan's attempt at something more intimate, but made no effort to remove his hands from her hips.

"Work first, then play," she teased playfully. Despite her own words, she leaned back in, giving him another quick peck, on his lips this time. "How'd it go? Learn anything new?"

Dan, doing his best not to pout, dutifully answered, "It went well. I confirmed a few things that we already suspected."

Her raised eyebrow prompted him to continue.

"My power doesn't handle distance linearly," he told her, remembering the distance he covered with his filament. At a comparable thickness to a sewing pin, the thin thread should have extended well past its stopping point. The only conclusion he could draw, was that his power became less effective as it left the vicinity of his body. He suspected it would be even worse here in the material plane; his power propagated poorly through air, which would only compound the problem. That, though, was an entirely separate issue, and one that he did not intend to address quite yet.

Abby hummed at the confirmation. They'd both suspected it, talked about it, even, but this was the first time he'd taken time to confirm it.

"You'll probably have to use the terrain, then," she advised thoughtfully. She chewed on her bottom lip in a manner that was entirely too distracting. "Go ahead and try it out. If you put a few holes in my foundation, I can just patch it."

Dan had learned not to question her, when she made such suggestions. Abby was a blunt person at heart. When she said something, she almost always meant it. So, another thin filament lanced out from his veil. This time, it left from near his feet, burrowing downwards. Rock and gravel, sand and dirt, Dan gained vague impressions of each as his veil passed them. Building materials were dense and heavy, and tightly packed. Good. Dan's power actually seemed to prefer denser objects. It moved faster and smoother through them, though it was still limited by mass. Fortunately, the filament was extremely thin. Not quite as thin as he was capable of, Dan still struggled to manipulate his veil when it was outside his line of sight, but thin enough to reach outside the house, all the way to the street. He grimaced as he felt the tendril grow taut.

"How far do you make it, from here to the edge of the sidewalk?" he asked Abby, while glancing out the closest window facing the road. His power did not come with a built in rangefinder. He could feel roughly where his power ended, but had no idea what the distance actually was.

She followed his gaze, needing only a moment to answer. "About eighty-seven feet."

Dan sighed, shaking his head. "Less than half of what I managed in t-space." He retracted the probe, it making an almost audible schlorp as it was sucked back into his veil.

"How thin can you make it?" Abby asked curiously.

"Um." Dan held out his index finger and thumb, keeping them barely apart. "Pretty damn thin? I can make it thinner, but it's not as easy when I can't see it."

Abby frowned. "That's gotta be a visualization problem."

"Well, yeah, that's what I just said," Dan replied cheekily, flashing her a roguish grin.

Abby playfully smacked his shoulder. "You know what I mean! What are you picturing when you control it? I don't think I've ever asked."

"Um." Something thin? Dan considered how to phrase his answer in a way which made him sound less like an idiot. "I picture a rope, or a thread? Like, a really thin one?" That was not the way.

Abby, bless her kind heart, did not laugh in his face. She scratched at the bottom of her chin, humming to herself.

"A rope, huh?" she murmured. Her eyes darted over to Dan, who waited patiently beside her. His hand had not left her hip, and he found himself squeezing down in surprise as she darted in for another kiss. Moments later, she spun away, giggling as she skipped out of the living room.

"Be right back!" she called behind her.

Dan smiled like an idiot, and waited obediently. He couldn't have done anything else.

It was only a few minutes before Abby emerged from the hallway, clutching a short length of thin nylon rope. She bounced over to Dan, and held it up for him to examine. The rope was dyed a bright blue, skinnier than Dan's pinky finger, and had clearly just been cut.

"Picture your power like this," she ordered in her 'trainer' voice, wiggling the object.

Hardly the strangest request Dan had ever received. With a shrug, he did as she asked. It wasn't difficult to manipulate his veil in such a way. Basic shapes were fairly straightforward, though he had the most success when they acted like 'limbs' for him to manipulate. A thin strand of his veil peeled away from the greater whole, slowly shaping itself into an approximate copy of the rope. He coiled it around himself, feeling the drain as it swam through the air.

"Done," Dan announced, turning his attention from his veil to Abby. He probably looked like a crazy person from the outside, staring blankly at empty air, at a power only he could see. "Now what?"

Abby grinned at him. "Now this." With both hands, she began to peel apart the rope like a banana. The threads became unwoven, splitting apart into thinner strands, over and over again.

It took an embarrassingly long time for Dan to understand what she was trying to convey.

"Oh." His veil began to shift, mirroring the rope. He could feel it unraveling, layers that he hadn't even realized existed, pulling back and away. The thicker strands were drawn into his reservoir, while the remainder reformed. The result was significantly smaller than the original.

And then Dan repeated the process. Again and again.

He was left with a thread so thin it might as well have been spider silk. Barely visible to his eye, and less than a whisper to his senses. He sent that thread downward, through the foundations, following its predecessors path. It was like a limb that had fallen asleep. It obeyed him, but sloppily. That sixth sense that kept him aware of his veil was almost numb to the thread.

Dan frowned in consternation. "This will take some getting used to."

"But is it better?" Abby asked, focusing on the important aspect. "Will it work for what you're trying to do?"

Dan kept pushing, directing it outward. At best guess, the tip of the thread was somewhere near the center of the street, yet the drain was still manageable. He directed it upward, almost flinching as it reached air. The drain increased dramatically, eating through the entirety of his reservoir, until he pulled the thread back into the dense earth.

He furrowed his brow. The objective, here, was to finagle a method to use his power at a distance, with as much efficiency as possible. Simply reaching out at an object through the air was horrendously ineffective, at least when transporting things heavier than gases. Their solution was to forge a thin link between him and his target, minimizing the amount of wasteful mass, then extruding his veil from the point of contact. Basically, he was attempting to jury-rig remote teleportation.

Once he had hold of an object (or parts of an object), he could drag it into the gap, and swap it with something useful. If he could master this technique, or even just get it to function, it would massively improve his ability to assist during urban rescue. His power could deliver air, food, and water, to people trapped beneath rubble. He could use it to surgically remove weakened sections that others would not be able to reach or interact with. In theory, the technique could even be expanded to act as a sensor net, using multiple threads to burrow through the earth. Living beings repelled his power when contacted, making them stand out like beacons to his senses. The applications were endless.

He just needed to practice. Dan urged his veil to spread, drenching the asphalt of the road. His reservoir drained away, the distance eating through his available mass. One-hundred fifty pounds became closer to ten, but it worked. He drenched ten pounds of asphalt with his power; ready to drag it into t-space with only a thought.

Though, he probably shouldn't ruin Abby's floor and a good chunk of her street. Potholes were not helpful to anyone. Instead, he smiled widely, turning to his girlfriend.

"It worked!" he exclaimed, scooping her up in his arms and twirling her in a circle. She laughed with him, falling in to his embrace without complaint.

"Now it's just repetition," she murmured into his neck, wrapping herself around him. Her breath tickled his ears, and a pleasant buzzing filled his mind. He pressed his face against her hair, breathing in vanilla and coffee.

"Time for play, yet?" he asked, deciding to try his luck.

She smiled coyly, but pulled away from him. Dan let her go with a quiet groan, and she giggled once more.

"We need to talk about Matilda," Abby chided, patting his chest. "You can't put her off for much longer."

Dan groaned again, more genuinely this time. Matilda, an upgrade analyst and friend of his Academy teacher. The woman had taken an interest in Dan's power during the last field trip, seemingly realizing that it was more than it appeared. He had promised to meet with her to discuss it, and had been fending off her probes ever since.

After an initial period of panic, both Abby and Dan had realized that there wasn't much the woman could actually threaten him with. His official file had been forged, sure, but she lacked the pull to discover that, or to even have it investigated. She had contacts within the APD, but Dan was no slouch, himself. He was friendly with multiple officers, and had stopped a plot to kill several more. They, if Gregoir and Ito were any indication, actually liked him there. The police department would not be interested in digging through Dan's past. Not unless he made an active nuisance of himself in some way.

"I could just ignore her," Dan suggested hopefully. He really didn't want to deal with the overly curious woman. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Abby sighed, flopping down onto her couch. She splayed out on her back, arm hanging over her forehead. "I just don't know," Abby lamented grumpily. "She might leave you alone, once she realizes you won't play ball, or she might throw a fit and draw attention to you. I don't think you should take that risk."

Dan took a seat on the couch beside Abby, letting her legs rest across his lap. "You think I should play dumb?"

His question received no immediate response. Abby stared up at her ceiling, humming in consideration, occasionally wiggling her feet. Dan let her think, relaxing into the comfortable cushions and gently rubbing circles onto Abby's toned calves.

"I think," she began slowly, "that my ability to help you with your power is limited. I know Mama Ana's exercises, so I can help you grow it, but that woman might be able to help you come up with more creative uses for it." The admittance was accompanied by a sour expression, as if she blamed herself for not being perfectly capable of everything.

Dan stroked her legs, running a hand down to her bare feet. Abby watched him curiously, right up until he tickled her. The yelp she made was adorable, and getting kicked in the face by a twitchy leg was entirely worth it. It snapped Abby out of her melancholy before it had even begun. Dan was getting better at reading her, at understanding when her moods would shift.

He humbly added a gold star to his boyfriend chart.

"You'll need a convincing lie," Abby told him, once she'd settled down. Her legs were still draped across him, but she'd scooted closer to his body. His hands rested on her thighs, and he was incredibly aware of that fact.

"I could—" Dan swallowed heavily. "I could say that my veil is the mutation. Maybe the short-hop upgrade comes with a veil like mine, but my mutation is that I can control it? And!" His voice raised, as he came up with more plausible bullshit. "And a normal short-hop wouldn't even know that it exists, because it's automatic! But I can extend it past my body! It's perfect!"

"Hmm." Abby's hand began to play with a lock of her hair. "That might work. We'll have to look into the specifics of the short-hop, though. It's a decent enough plan, for now."

"Sooo..." Dan ran a hand slowly up her thigh, over her waist, across her stomach. He smiled in way that he dearly hoped was flirty. "Time for play?"

Abby's followed his roaming hand through lidded eyes. A definitely flirty smile spread across her face. One hand wrapped around Dan's own, and the other went for his collar. She dragged him on top of her, mashing her lips against his.

This was what life should be, not the mind-numbing repetition of his old world. Dan was financially stable, dating a beautiful woman, and facing mostly minor problems. He had made decent progress with his power, thus far, and had plenty of time to experiment with it later. Personally, he thought Abby was underselling her own contributions to his growth. Her idea to mimic that rope had been a stroke of genius.

Then Abby's hand dragged Dan's northward, and his mind lost almost all sense of coherence. As he fell into a blissful haze, his last thought seized upon an odd question.

Why did she have a rope?