The Law of Averages

Chapter 69

Primrose Park was an unfamiliar sight for Daniel. The tranquil stretch of land was the home of a sprawling shopping mall in his home dimension. Here, it was a beautiful forest, surrounding a lake, rural and serene. A paved path meandered around the water's edge, with wooden benches and fountains dotted across the landscape. Birdsong echoed through the trees, a welcome distraction from Dan's purpose here.

He sat on a shaded bench, within sight of the lake. A few families milled about on the shore, their children playing in the shallows. Dogs frolicked among them, dipping in and out of the water without a care. Sounds of laughter just barely reached Dan's ears. It was a beautiful day.

A beautiful day thoroughly ruined by the severe woman sitting beside him. Matilda Fairbanks was hardly the most intimidating of individuals when judging purely by appearance. Standing at 5'1, with a slight build, graying hair, and deep crow's feet around her eyes, the woman could have easily passed as someone's grandmother. Then she opened her mouth, and revealed a personality made out of sandpaper.

"You certainly took your time responding to my messages," she opened the conversation, a bare hint of annoyance flashing across her face. The older woman's expression was stern, like a disappointed teacher.

Dan shrugged carelessly. "I've been busy."

The plan was a simple one. Admit nothing, acknowledge nothing, play dumb as a rock. He and Abby had prepared a plausible explanation for how his power worked, but the best case scenario was to never need it. Though his girlfriend had tentatively argued in favor of a partial reveal, Dan did not trust the elderly woman in the slightest. Regardless of her apparent friendship with Professor Tawny, the way she'd gone about confronting Dan felt wrong to his instincts. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, but Dan erred on the side caution.

"Why am I here?" he asked directly, turning away from the idyllic lake. The question came out more rude than he intended, but he couldn't bring himself to care. This meeting, Matilda's entire existence, was an inconvenience that he didn't want to deal with. He could be making out with Abby right now, instead of dealing with an old woman's curiosity.

Whether from his tone or his shameless false ignorance, Matilda's expression darkened. "I think you know." There was a warning in her tone, slight but audible.

Dan disregarded it entirely. Whether or not she had his balls in a vice was immaterial for this conversation. Marcus had taught him well: never let an opponent think they hold power over you. He had forgotten that lesson, in his first conversation with her. He wouldn't forget again.

"Why don't you tell me, just in case?" Dan suggested cheerfully. He plastered an apologetic smile on his face. "I'm just... a little forgetful, y'know?" He regretted the taunt as soon as it left his lips. It was a fine line between asserting his own control over the situation, and outright baiting the woman.

Dan was not very good at riding that line.

Matilda's scowl confirmed his thoughts, but the stern woman kept her composure. "Your power interests me. I believe it capable of more than you've admitted, and I want an opportunity to explore it. Natural powers are beyond rare, these days."

The frank admission startled Dan, and his eyes widened. He hadn't expected her to just come out and admit things in such a way. His expression slipped, but he turned the half-formed grimace into polite confusion.

"I have no idea what you are talking about." His voice was earnest, his face a picture of innocence. Like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. This was an old skill, but easy to remember. He just pictured her as his old boss, demanding some form of pointless paperwork that hadn't bothered to complete. He thought he'd sold his ignorance rather well.

Matilda wasn't buying it. Her stern visage barely shifted as she examined his face. With a soft snort, she said, "Your poker face has improved since we last spoke."

It was much easier when he had time to prepare. The panic of possible discovery had overridden his good sense at the time, but it had been hard for Dan to feel anything other than happiness these past few days. He could handle this, he just needed the proper excuses.

Fortunately, he had one prepared. "I thought you were going to chew me out!" he exclaimed indignantly. "You brought me away from everyone, and you had that look on your face. You can hardly blame me for being discombobulated. You're friends with Professor Tawny; for all I know, you could have me kicked out of the class for incompetence!"

Matlida's brow furrowed. "You would have to be a demonstrable danger to yourself or others for Tawny to dismiss you in such a way." Dan knew that already, but he managed to fake an enlightened expression as the elderly woman continued. "Furthermore, he is a sworn officer. Do you really believe that he would expel you on my word alone?" She paused, then shook her head. "No. Don't play games. Claim ignorance all you like, make your excuses, but I know the truth of the matter."

Well, it was worth a shot. Dan could play an extremely convincing bumbler—A fact that Abby had pointed out, much to his embarrassment—and if Matilda had no hard evidence, it might have worked. Sadly, she seemed rather convinced of her deductions.

He couldn't help but ask, "Why are you so sure of yourself?"

The questioned perked up the older woman. Her back straightened, and some of the annoyance faded from her countenance. Striking a lecturing pose, she began, "Firstly, the short-hop upgrade requires line-of-sight and an open area for a reason. Did you know that the earliest iteration of the upgrade was perfectly capable of teleporting blindly?"

Dan indicated the negative, something sinking in his stomach. The short-hop was an unpopular and little known upgrade. He'd been relying on its relative anonymity to spin his bullshit. If Matilda had in-depth knowledge on it, he might be in a bit of trouble.

She smirked at his answer. "Oh yes, it's quite true, though you'll have trouble finding any official records of that fact. You see, the initial trials ended with roughly a 30% fatality rate. People kept ending up inside the environment, you see? It was remarkably deadly."

The sinking feeling worsened.

"Naturally, safety measures were implemented afterwards. A simple mental block, preventing teleportation without visual confirmation of appropriate space." She paused, giving him a long look. "The fact that you are alive, despite teleporting blindly through thick undergrowth, says a great deal about your actual capabilities."

He hadn't known that, nor had it come up while researching the short-hop. It made sense, he could reluctantly acknowledge, in that a company wouldn't exactly advertise that sort of thing. Messy deaths had a bad habit of putting off customers. Still, it was aggravating that Matilda had access to that information.

Or she could be bluffing. Hm.

Either way, she wasn't finished. "Secondly, the aforementioned safety feature is the reason why the short-hop is limited by distance. The eyes of a baseline human are only so good, after all, and even that quality varies wildly between individuals. A hard limit on distance acted as an extra layer of security, to preserve the user's life." She smiled, slow and confident. "On the surface, your power acts like a short-hop which has had its safety restrictions removed. Such a thing is possible, and perfectly manageable. However, an actual mutate would have been warned to never blindly teleport, the very moment that their mutation was discovered. Can you imagine the liability that the company would face, if they didn't?" She shook her head. "The fact that you do so, that you do so often, and that you do so fearlessly, indicates that your power is something else entirely."

This was not looking good for Dan. He and Abby had thought the woman was merely curious. The cover story he had built revolved around the public knowledge of the short-hop. The upgrade was poorly documented. They'd assumed that they could make up whatever story they wanted. Upgrade analysts specialized in creative uses for mundane upgrades. She shouldn't have known all this hidden history. Upgrade testing was heavily classified, and competition among the various companies was fierce. Secrets were not easily handed out, nor stolen. Just who was this woman, that she had access to these records?

Fucking hell, Dan should have gone to Granny Terminator for help.

"Lastly," Matilda continued, her expression turning sly, "I have referred to your mutation as a power, repeatedly, over the course of this conversation and our last one, and not once have you corrected me. It's a common theme, I've found, among those few individuals with natural powers. You people have a tendency to unconsciously lord your own individuality over others."

Oh, that was just fucked up! They were all powers to Dan! He hadn't grown up with the colloquial language, and he still made minor mistakes here and there. He tried to refer to his own power as an upgrade, when talking to strangers, but Matilda had referred to it as such. Dan had simply mirrored her, never thinking about the implications.

He said as much, the only honest words he'd spoken sounding hollow as they left his lips. "I was just following your lead. I didn't realize the terminology meant so much to you." Still, it was plausible enough. Not everyone bought into the pervading culture. There were always outliers. He was certain that there were people around who still called upgrades superpowers.

Matilda seemed unimpressed by his genuine indignance. "Protest all you'd like, but you cannot explain away your own performance. No sane short-hop mutate would have blindly traipsed through a forest in such a manner. A branch swaying in the wind, or — Even just a leaf falling from a tree, ending where your head would appear! The slightest misstep, would be an end to you! So." She crossed her arms, watching Dan with a steely expression. "I judge you sane, if a bit of a fool, and I judge your power a unique one."

Dan's eyes narrowed. Acknowledge nothing, Marcus whispered into one ear. We can use her, Abby spoke into the other. He instinctively wanted to side with the latter, to agree with his friend, his closest companion. It appealed to the chivalrous part of him, that his partner should be trusted in all matters.

No. On this matter, he'd side with the paranoid old man. There were too many unanswered questions, here. Too many mysteries for trust to exist. He needed to know more about this woman's background before ever beginning to contemplate a partnership.

Abby was a smart girl, and her grandmother had taught her to be properly suspicious, but she was trusting at heart. Anastasia Summers's aegis was large, almost all-encompassing, and Abby had lived within it her entire life. She'd been taught to handle the lesser dangers that might face her, thugs, thieves, even villains. Individuals who would look upon Abby and miss the great shadow watching over her. The greater threats, those people who would deceive her, who would hurt or betray her, those were warned away by her grandmother's sheer reputation. She had never feared a false face or sweet lies, not outside of her own kin.

Not to say that Dan had experience, either, outside of your standard office politics. His teacher, however, was a bitter man, full of regrets. Marcus had schooled Daniel well, in the art of cynicism.

Denial it was. "You're wrong," he said simply, not bothering to fake honesty. The rest of this was just a play, for any cameras or recorders that might exist. Matilda could fuss all she wanted, but her hold over Dan was weak. Hearsay, some fuzzy footage, and some unsubstantiated facts about an upgrade nobody cared about. Let her bring it up with Tawny. Dan would bet his good will within the APD against her professional opinion any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Matilda did not seem perturbed by his denial. She simply passed him her card, with an additional number written on the back in looping red ink. Dan eyed the thing like it was a bomb, but took it anyway.

"For when you change your mind," Matilda explained.

Dan scoffed.

"I can help you realize your true potential," she continued frankly, disregarding all pretenses. "The opportunity to observe a natural power as it grows is all the payment I ask."

A sadistic idea occurred to Daniel. "Why not bug Gregoir? He's got a natural power."

Matilda's eye twitched. "I... attempted to, already. Officer Pierre-Louis has his own preconceptions on the nature of his ability, and was not open to exploration."

"Mmhmm," Dan hummed in amusement. He slapped both hands down onto his knees, and stood up. "Well, this has been a delight, but I've got other things to do today."

The older woman stood with him, staring at him an eerie intensity. She made one last attempt to convince him, grabbing Dan around the elbow with more strength than he expected. Her breath rattled against his ear.

"You'll want for power, eventually. Your kind always do! Why wait? Why not seize greatness when it is presented to you?!"

Dan jerked his elbow out of her grip, rubbing away the soreness. He examined the older woman as she regained her composure, but the hungry look never left her eyes.

"We're done here," Dan told her, stepping out of her reach. "I think it's time you leave."

Matilda made an aborted movement, a lunge half-formed, before abruptly turning away.

"Call me when you find your courage," she said, and then she was gone. Dan watched her shuffle away, his eyes following until she faded into the forest.

He turned to leave, moving in the opposite direction. The path meandered for almost half a mile before it reached the edge of the park. He could be gone in an instant, if he wished.

Right now, he would rather walk.