Chapter 2
Standing outside Theodore Roosevelt Middle School while kids were filing out made me feel like I was finally coming to terms with the reality of my situation, and what it meant to be a power thief.
Stalking twelve-year-old girls.
I waited across the street, sitting in a park, while keeping my power sense tuned to the school. I could feel Dinah's movement as she inexorably made it through the hallways of her school and proceeded on outside.
I stood up, swallowed my trepidation, and approached the young child, telling myself over and over again that this was for her own good.
000
Dinah's headaches had finally seemed to calm down over the past few weeks. It got easier when she tried not to think of answers to questions.
She could distract herself by thinking of other things than classes and how her grades had taken a nosedive in the recent months, and how her parents were considering sending her to a neurologist to see what the damage was, and what the odds were that she would ever return to her former self.
Odds, always with the odds.
What even are the odds?
As always, she glimpsed at a tapestry of infinite possibilities, seeing shadows and snapshots and a face of a man. A black man.
Not costumed. Not wearing a black full-body suit with a white snake over his head.
A person. He smiled warmly. Reached his hands over.
96.53%.
Huh?!
She grew lost in thought at the percentage, and the possibility. Returning to her old life. Everything becoming better again. Not great, but better.
Her parents had finally stopped hiring her tutor, and they no longer cared about her school performance, as long as she was healthy. It had been a difficult few months, but all the pressures she once felt had finally eased up on her. Things could get better.
But if the percentages kept coming—
She felt something bump into her on the sidewalk next to the street. A person. He was big. "Ah, sorry!" he boomed. Scary! He wore a thick leather winter jacket, and a beanie, and he had glasses.
He patted her on the head, and she squealed in fright. He ruffled her scalp. She was frozen in terror, desperate to leave, but so scared to do so. His hand froze on her scalp, and she closed her eyes, unable to draw a breath as it just stayed there, not even moving.
What's going to happen to me?
After several long seconds, he finally spoke. Quietly.
"What are the odds that I'd run into you, huh?" he asked, his voice stilted and still overly loud, and he spoke in an accent that she couldn't quite recognize.
"I, uh… I don't know," she squealed.
Then he turned around and walked away.
Just like that.
Wait. I don't know what the odds are.
The percentages…
"What are the chances that the guy was…" she needed something specific. "Going to hurt me?" she asked herself.
Nothing.
She let out a breath as she just watched him walk away. A teacher was coming out of the school building, calling after him. He ignored her entirely and kept walking. Dinah couldn't take her eyes off from him.
Was he the one that she had seen in her vision?
The one that would give her back her life?
000
Perfect grades. Tutors harrying her into the night, whipping her brain into shape, forcing her to return excellent results to her parents.
Perfection didn't give her any special rewards. It had only satisfied their expectations, and Dinah had never been smart in the sense that things came easily to her. All she had was pressure forcing her to barely meet demands by the skin of her teeth.
In the end, she had triggered with a power that would allow her to fill all the gaps that speckled her knowledge, all that she didn't know of the future.
And now, it was mine.
The power to get an answer to any question that I wanted to ask.
Presumably only questions about the future, as the one I had asked Dinah hadn't really produced any numbers. I had to be careful now to not ask my power any questions as I only had half a dozen—
I felt something pull at my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned around and saw someone dressed in only a cardigan and a skirt, even in the chilly outside air. She looked like she was in her mid-forties, and was underdressed for the weather.
Unless she had just come out from somewhere. Indoors.
She waved her lips frantically at me. Her brows were furrowed in clear anger.
What the fuck? What did I do?
I looked over her shoulder and saw Dinah in the far distance. She felt muted to my power sense, but I still felt her.
Rather than stick around and try to explain myself, I turned around and ran.
Shit. Well, not like I'm coming back there ever again.
I looked over my shoulder and the teacher was no longer following me. Instead, she held up her phone towards me, likely snapping pictures. Damn. Whatever.
My first day in Brockton and I was already making a reputation of myself as a menace towards children.
Quick and dirty, man. That was sloppy.
I couldn't have helped it. I had expected to make it a quick in and out, but instead, the trigger vision had locked me in place and terrorized me mentally. Everything Dinah had felt, I had too. It was awful.
Less heavy than I had expected, but nonetheless quite awful. It was a small wonder that I wasn't in tears somewhere.
No time for tears, though. Not yet. I still needed to make it to a safe place.
Night was about to fall after all.
…The PRT would take me in. If only for a time. They wouldn't lock me up, either. After all, I hadn't committed any crimes just yet. If I told them that I was a precognitive cape that could answer any questions posed with varying degrees of accuracy, they would at least put me up for the night if I could prove it.
If I played my cards right, then I could leave tomorrow morning and search for my next target, someone that might be able to help me clear away my lingering drawbacks.
No. No guarantee that they wouldn't lock me up for some arbitrary reason. They were the PRT, and I was from another universe. They would find out.
The Undersiders?
With Lisa's bullshit power and Coil looming above them all, I couldn't think of a worse place to go, aside from the Neo-Nazis or Lung.
New Wave? Heh. Fat chance of that. They didn't really seem like a place where you could just crash for the night if you were a cape in need of a place to sleep, given how militant they were. And they had cause to be after what happened to one of their number.
I had six potential uses of Dinah's power, and I didn't want to waste them on proving myself to the PRT or some gang. Some other gang than the PRT, heh.
Oooh, the government's a gang. Look at me, I'm so insightful.
I chuckled to myself at the stupidity. Humor was all I had now that I was facing imminent homelessness, and no-food-havingness.
I needed to get to a homeless shelter. I had fuckall to steal in terms of personal shit, aside from the jacket, and I wasn't planning on going to sleep without already wearing everything that was on me. I could pop a question on the likelihood of being stolen from, maybe.
I just needed to get out of the dark. I couldn't handle the sheer anxiety of losing my sight on top of my hearing as the conditions grew darker and darker.
I needed money.
How the fuck do you make a quick buck with six questions?
I hissed. Forget the money. All I needed was to get through the night. Just one night.
Start thinking like a fucking adult, …
I winced. No name.
No name at all.
What is open all night?
Where can people like me go?
Hospital?
A police building?
I cleared my throat and spoke my words carefully.
"Chance I sleep indoors tonight if I go into a hospital and wait?"
I grunted as I felt my brain explode with more information than it could ever hold at once. As soon as it all rushed in, it seemed to resolve itself into a number, leaving me with only glimpses of myself inside a stark white hospital waiting room illuminated by fluorescent lights.
"Ninety-three point eight seven percent."
Okay. Okay.
Hospital it was, then.
I'd get quite a bit of mileage with my current outfit, since I didn't look homeless-homeless. Not the fingerless gloves and five layers of coats kind of homeless, with the missing teeth and the ratty beanie. In fact, I looked extremely average.
I could potentially wait in the hospital without getting kicked out. Sleep even.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had identified a first step. It wasn't a victory, but it was a step in the right direction.
A+ for keeping a cool head.
And hey, what were the odds anyway that Amy might appear and heal me?
12.56%
Fuck! And fuck me for accidentally triggering the power!
This was going to be a real problem for me going forward, once I got my hearing back.
Positive thinking. Good job, …
And what the fuck should I even call myself?
000
I, dickhead, walked into a hospital and sat on a chair in the very back of the waiting room, next to some sickly looking man that seemed to have cleared out an entire spot for himself. There were people standing that didn't want to get close to the old man.
Had he shat his pants, maybe?
I took a deep breath through my nose. Nope. Nothing.
Thanks, Jingyi.
I put my hands in my pocket, crossed my ankles, and closed my eyes.
Closing my eyes still managed to close me off from the rest of the universe entirely, except that it also sharpened my ability to sense the capes in my vicinity.
I was somewhat over my fear of being shanked by someone because I couldn't sense them coming, but just to be safe, I asked my power what the likelihood of being brutally assaulted would be were I to sleep in this hospital
Three percent and change.
I felt a pinch in the back of my skull that resolved into a generalized ache around my head. Not that much, really. This was my fourth question of the day.
Should I ask more?
Which ones were there to ask? I could ask about the incident at the middle school, if anything was likely to come of that. I could try cheesing a greater likelihood for a Panacea heal by asking better questions and trying to focus on the timeline in which I actually received the healing.
I could ask about a lot of things, but each question would increase my headache and make it that much more difficult for me to go to sleep. I already had everything I needed. No additional actions needed to be taken. I had spent this run optimally, by upgrading my power, gaining a new one, and finding a place to rest.
I had made no enemies and sustained no injuries as well.
My first day on Earth Bet was a good one.
000
A day and some change spent without having eaten anything didn't really ruffle me. I had more than enough saved energy stores to make it for a long, long time before I became debilitated. My eating was disordered enough as it was that just a day or two of fasting—my system coasting by on some water that I had drunk from one of the many water coolers in the hospital—wasn't enough to throw me off my already woeful game.
None of the doctors, nurses or orderlies had come to bother me while I had slept, to my surprise. They had left me alone. Maybe they knew what I was, a transient without anywhere else to go. I was grateful, however.
My sleep was for shit. Waking up felt like I had been on a plane, minus the constant noise and the shitty air pressure. Realizing I was in a hospital waiting room, still on Earth Bet, had disappointed me severely.
But it was what it was.
I had to get up and get moving. I needed to get to my next target.
And I had one already picked. A person whose powers might synergize well with the one I already had, while also helping keep me alive for a long while yet.
What are the odds that I can touch him before he notices?
58.67%.
Six seven, huh? I felt good about this one.
I was no gambling man. In fact, whenever I gambled with non-existent stakes, the loss already felt so harsh that I wondered how anyone could stomach losing actual money.
What are the odds that I'll get to touch him even after he notices?
96.45%
He would want to touch me upon seeing me, definitely. There was no escaping that. He was very eager to give me some high-impact touches.
'I have no enemies' was a quote that I had once read. It was interesting. And yet, it didn't apply to me at all. I had never even seen this man before in my life, and he hadn't seen me, either. Yet, he would not hesitate to brutalize me if he could get away with it.
What a sick, sick man.
What are the odds that I'll die even after I touch him and take his power?
1.54%.
Alright, dickhead. There's the number that most matters. So don't pussy out now. You gotta do it. The numbers say you gotta do it.
The numbers didn't say shit. I was saying all that. Me.
Outside the hospital, I spotted an older woman smoking by the street right next to the path leading up to the hospital. I walked up to her gently and spoke as quietly as I could. "Hey, can I borrow a cigarette?" What a stupid thing to ask.
How is a nigga gonna borrow a cigarette? Nigga, is you gonna give it back?
She didn't react at all. Was she ignoring me? Or had she just not heard me?
I spoke louder, and she started, and looked at me with a frown, and said something to me quite harshly.
"I'm sorry if I'm being loud, it's because I'm deaf," I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me and said something else.
She was making no moves to give me a cigarette.
"I can't hear what you're saying, but I guess the answer is no. I'm really sorry I bothered you."
She seemed to do something with her tongue, rolling her eyes before digging into her pockets and retrieving the pack.
Noice.
After lending me her lighter, she took her cigarette elsewhere, ceding this spot to me, and I continued thinking. Three questions down. Three more to go. Best go with two rather than three, so the headaches wouldn't debilitate me too badly.
"What are the chances that I won't be found out by the other capes if I try this?"
15.56%.
I focused on those timelines, grasping for as many details as I could find. All I could see was a slideshow running a mile a minute. Glimpses that lasted a fraction of a second.
An alleyway.
Following him in.
Death. Not mine.
I winced. Of course. How else would I not be found out? The main witness would have to go in that case.
Was I ready for that?
Ready to kill a fucking Nazi?
I clicked my tongue.
Good grief. This should be way easier to consider.
What, was I shy or something? Afraid to dispense some karma? Did I feel unworthy?
Whatever was holding me back, it couldn't have been anything valid.
000
"Can I steal from Cauldron capes as well? And do I end up stealing any physical mutations as well, where applicable?"
"You can steal from all capes provided they have not disabled your powers somehow." Fucking Hatchet Face. Had to look out for that one. "As for any physical mutations, you may receive a small portion of the target's mutations."
What the fuck does a small portion mean? "So Case 53s are right out?"
"That's entirely up to you."
Fuck you. This is shit.
"I have been extremely patient with you," Jingyi said.
What the hell? "I can't very well stop myself from thinking these thoughts than I can stop emotions from occurring. Please be reasonable. Or put me in a body where I can separate thoughts from speech, at least."
"Ah, I suppose I'll extend my patience even further. Any questions?"
000
Here I was. A black man in 'Empire 88' territory. A question had assured me that as long as I kept to the main streets and didn't speak to anyone, I would only have a ninepercent chance of being the target of some gang initiation ritual, or any other kind of assorted physical violence.
Another question had given me more hints pertaining to the 'good timeline' of snatching up Alabaster's power and getting away.
That was six questions, and the headaches were becoming difficult to ignore. Not outright debilitating, though I wondered if that just had to do with the fact that I was older than Dinah, and more used to headaches than she was.
I ignored the askance glances cast about me as I walked down the street, stopping a block away from Alabaster's house. There, inside in alley, I waited.
I felt like I had been in there for hours just waiting, feeling like I was on the verge of attempting the worst, most mentally scarring exam of my lifetime.
Alabaster began moving after a while, walking out of his building, and rounding it before dipping into an alley.
I followed. Surreptitiously. There hadn't been any sightlines between him and I, so I was decently confident that he still hadn't noticed me.
So what's the plan, genius?
Just… just get his fucking power.
That was it. That was the plan. 1.5% odds told me that I was very unlikely to die if I got it.
I ran in after him. He had already turned the corner to an adjacent alley, and I followed him there as well. Then he stopped.
And backtracked. Why?
I was already too deep into the alley. We would meet in no-time.
At my stopping, he sped up, rounded the corner, and saw me.
He looked surreal. Perfectly white, flawless skin. Platinum blonde hair. No pupils on his eyes, just as white as everything else. No blood vessels even. And he was a handsome man. Very handsome.
And that handsome face was bent into a delighted grin.
Fuck!
I ran up at him. He raised his fist, stepped back, and punched me so hard in the face that I thought I would die just like that.
I reeled backward from the brutal punch of the nigger that had caught me off-guard.
Sam and Robert looked at me in shock. They had followed me into the alley, searching for one hoodrat to fuck up. A hoodrat that had veered too far away from home. Easy meat.
Instead, he had led us into an ambush. On the intersection of four alleyways, three of them were being filled up with groups of darkie gangsters, some with bats, others flashing guns in their waistband. Their monkey faces looked irately at me and my friends.
Sam and Robert darted. "Wait, fuck!" I shouted after them. "Stop!"
I tried following, but three guys cut me off immediately. No use. It was me against twenty or so jumped up crackhead fucks. Me against the world.
Sam and Robert will come back with help. They have to. Until then, I need to buy time. Keep these fucking jungle babies in one place for long enough that they will have dug their own graves.
A heroic sacrifice.
I grinned at the plan. A good plan. A worthy one. I wasn't going to…
The men grunted, growled, or giggled at me as they got closer and closer.
I wasn't going to… die here, was I?
"Oh, you are fucked, Peckerwood," one of them chuckled darkly.
I felt a warmth in my pants, spreading.
"Hahahah! The sumbitch done pissed his draws!"
"Damn! That's enough to brick a nigga up," one said, holding his crotch. "Mmmmh."
His friends laughed at that.
"Man, calm yo faggot-ass down. You play with him like that and you can stay here on yo own when the cavalry come," one of them shouted. He had a baseball bat. "Let's fuck his shit up right now."
They all converged on me. "No—wait!" I backed away.
Then I felt something break my knee. A bat.
I screamed and fell on my knees, feeling an additional wave of agony hit me.
More struck me. On my back, my shoulders.
"You pasty white fuck!" they shouted. "Fuck you! You pasty white fuck!"
How dare they? How dare they? Had they no concept of decency? How dare they?
They were the unworthy ones, the inferior ones. They were the monsters!
And I was getting killed by them.
It's only natural. Monsters go after innocents, right?
Oh god, oh sweet Jesus, I'm going to die.
"You pasty white fuck!" they said, almost in unison. "Pasty white fuck!"
"Pasty white fuck!" I screamed.
Alabaster, looming over me, paused. Color returned to his body. He darkened before my very eyes, stopping at a pasty white complexion, still far darker than how he had usually looked.
"You pasty white fuck!" I shouted again. I could… I could hear my voice! "Pasty white fuck!" I screamed again, getting on my feet. Oh god. Where—where'd the niggers go?
Wait, what?!
I looked at my hands. Oh god.
I was simultaneously too dark, and too light. My skin-tone had jumped up a few shades, making me look more middle-eastern than black, and I was not white.
The aftershocks of Alabaster's deep racism still rushed through me. He glared at me. "Motherfucker! You took my powers!"
He unsheathed a knife from his holster and ran at me. "Pasty—" I said, like it was the only words I could even say, like that word was inscribed into my soul.
How could anyone do that to another person? Just… wail on them like that?
Alabaster stabbed me in the chest. Right in my heart. The edges of my vision darkened, and then everything was okay. I stumbled away. He still held the knife, but it was completely missing its blade. Evidently, it must have disappeared inside of me.
"Pasty… white…" I muttered.
Chances I'll win if we keep fighting?
86.43%.
I rushed him, tackling him.
He kicked the crap out of me, grabbed me, and started bashing my skull against a wall.
It hurt in the way that I could acknowledge the pain, but it had no emotional cost to it. It just hurt. And then it didn't.
And then it did. And then it didn't. In four second intervals, he would hurt me until it stopped mattering.
I tried fighting back, weakly striking him. He would grab my body and find new ways to break it, twisting my preternaturally flexible limbs past their breaking points, and then breaking my bones all over again without losing steam.
I was in a lot of pain.
And roughly none of it bothered me.
I just had to get over my rational misgivings about my situation, force my brain to get with the program: fuck this bastard up, one way or the other.
Eventually, he broke away from me, and started panting.
I stood up, feeling utterly renewed. He looked at me in fright. "Give 'em… back," he panted. "They're… they're mine!"
"Pasty… white… fuck," I muttered. "That's what they called you. It wasn't right." I actually believed that.
"Fucking nigger."
I chuckled. "The fuck did I ever do to you, motherfucker? Seriously. Why do you hate me? I don't give a fuck about you! So why?!"
"I will rip your heart out and eat it, you nigger fuck!"
You know what, fuck this.
No more talking.
Never again. Never, ever again.
It was kill on sight now. For him, and all his little friends. Alabaster had taught me a valuable lesson today: you can't communicate with people that hate you. You just kill them before they kill you.
"Thanks for making this easier on me," I said as I ran up to him and pushed him to the wall. The back of his head crashed against the brick stone and he looked dazed.
I threw him on the ground and started kicking him the same way those lowlives did in his trigger event. Over and over and over.
He was wheezing. Unable to move from his doubled-over position, bleeding from his face.
And burning a temp slot in my power!
Motherfucker.
I kicked him on his head, as hard as I could, for the sheer audacity of his. That I should be made to hobble myself and be one slot down out of ten just to let this miserable piece of shit draw one single breath more.
He wasn't worth the hassle at all. The value of his life was—
Wait, no! I felt a shock of horror go through me at the sudden brutality. This was a human being and—
The panic left me after four seconds. A human being that wanted nothing else than to kill me.
I kicked him again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I kicked him one more time.
No. One more.
Oh my god, I'm killing him!
One more.
I felt a change, suddenly. Alabaster's power disappeared from my temp slot, and reappeared somewhere else.
Still within me, but no longer taking up one of the ten temporary slots, alongside Dinah's power.
And I looked down at Alabaster, and saw a caved in skull. A dead man.
Oh god. What have I done?
Four seconds.
Oh god. What have I done?
Four seconds.
Oh god—I did what I had to do. My emotions seemed to not have much continuity between resets. I could still feel things, but perhaps this sort of grief and horror counted more as damage than feelings? And my power's entire theme was returning things to their most pristine state. Maybe if I had actually lost someone important to me, my power would allow me to grieve in some way—maintain a continuous train of emotions in honor of the deceased.
But this…
Who gives a shit?
Had to move on, anyhow. I'd say 'grieve later', but even that, I doubted. I just needed to go.
Chances I'll be found out if I stick around?
98.54%
No shit. Not sure why I even asked.
Chances I'll be found out if I walk out that way?
86.54%
That way?
67.54%
That way?
75.54%
That way?
43.54%.
If I sprint instead of walk the entire way?
23.45%.
If I head east?
21.54%
…
And on it went. No headaches, either. I had been right on the money about how this power would synergize with Dinah's.
I struggled to imagine which power this wouldn't synergize well with.
Eventually, I had my escape route plotted, at a 13.45% confidence of being caught.
I ran.
And ran. And ran.
I ran faster than normal. Far, far faster. Faster, and more tirelessly. I straight up didn't have time to get tired at all as I ran.
I shaved down the percentage to 6.54% by asking some other questions. In no time at all, I had made it almost five kilometers from the murder scene. In ten minutes flat, perhaps.