Dinner was a quiet ritual. The clink of cutlery on plates, the soft hum of the aging refrigerator, the distant wail of a siren somewhere in the city—these were the sounds that filled our small kitchen. The meatloaf was good, hearty and familiar, a Baseline meal in a world increasingly defined by the extraordinary.
My father, Richard Prott, chewed methodically, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere past my shoulder. The day' work was etched into the lines on his face. I could see the tension in his jaw, the way his knuckles were slightly raw from manual labor that Gifted contractors now undercut with a wave of their hand.
"How was work?" I asked, breaking the silence. It was part of our routine. I asked about his day; he asked about mine. We navigated the minefield of our shared reality with carefully chosen, neutral words.
He grunted, swallowing a mouthful of food. "The Jensen job got canceled. They hired a team with a Terrakinetic. Said they could lay the foundation conduit in an hour." He shook his head, a weary, defeated motion. "No mess, no fuss."
I nodded, absorbing the information. It was a common story. "Their short-term gain. Terra-shaping is imprecise for delicate electrical work. They'll have grounding issues within a year. They'll call you then to fix it, and it'll cost them triple."
A faint, proud smile touched his lips. "That's my boy. Always thinking three steps ahead." The smile faded as quickly as it appeared. "Doesn't put food on the table now, though."
The unspoken words hung heavy in the air between us: If you had a Metagene, you could've done it in an hour too. We wouldn't be in this cramped apartment. We wouldn't be struggling.
He didn't say them. He never did. But I heard them all the same, echoing in the quiet of the room. My father wasn't a cruel man. He was a practical one, beaten down by a world that had moved on without him. His disappointment wasn't in me; it was in the circumstances. But it felt the same.
"I got the top score on the history mid-term," I offered, a weak attempt to shift the conversation to a victory, however small.
"That's good, son. Real good." He took another bite. "Just… make sure it's something they can't automate or… you know… think into existence." He gestured vaguely with his fork, a helpless motion that encompassed the entire unfairness of the world.
The rest of the meal passed in silence. After helping with the dishes, I retreated to my room. It was a small, Spartan space. A bed, a desk, a bookshelf overflowing with textbooks on physics, history, and metaphysics—the closest I could get to understanding the System I couldn't touch. On the wall was a single poster: a detailed, cross-sectional diagram of a geothermal plant. The closest thing I had to a fantasy.
I sat at my desk, opening my journal. It was a habit I'd developed years ago. A place to put the thoughts I couldn't say aloud, to analyze the world without the risk of my bluntness offending anyone.
Entry: October 17th, I wrote, the pen scratching against the paper.
Observed continued social stratification at school. The incident with Elara in the library is a microcosm of the wider societal friction. Her need to reinforce her social standing by targeting me suggests a latent insecurity, likely stemming from her own transition from a Baseline-socialized child to a Gifted adolescent. Her power grants her status, but it also alienates her from her past. I am a living reminder of that past, hence the hostility. It's a predictable, almost textbook, psychological response.
I paused, tapping the pen against the page. The clinical analysis felt hollow tonight. I looked at the last sentence I'd written. It's a predictable… psychological response.
With a sigh, I put a line through it and wrote beneath it, the words messier, less controlled.
It still sucks.
There. Honesty. A rare indulgence.
My thoughts were interrupted by the soft chime of my data-slate. A news alert. I tapped the screen, and a serious-faced anchor appeared.
"—continuing our top story. The MRA has issued a city-wide advisory regarding a Rogue Inhuman believed to be responsible for a series of violent assaults in the industrial district. Citizens are advised to avoid the Dockside and Millcross areas and report any suspicious activity immediately."
The screen cut to a grainy, enhanced still from a security camera. It showed a hulking figure, his skin appearing to be made of rough, jagged stone, effortlessly punching through a reinforced warehouse door.
"The individual, designated Kragg, is considered extremely dangerous. His Metagene is classified as a high-tier Physical Mutation-type, granting him immense strength and durability. He has exhibited violent, erratic behavior and is not to be approached."
I studied the image. The power was undeniable. Brutal. Unsubtle. A perfect weapon. I found myself analyzing his posture, the way he moved—all brute force, no finesse. A sledgehammer in a world that sometimes needed a scalpel. The advisory was pure fear-mongering, designed to keep the public docile and reliant on the MRA. Pragmatic, but ethically questionable.
I minimized the news feed. A Rogue Inhuman was a statistical probability in a city this size, a variable in the social equation. Unpleasant, but distant. It had nothing to do with me.
Another chime. This time, a private message. It was from Elara.
The simple preview on my screen made my breath catch in my throat. She hadn't messaged me directly in over a year.
Elara: Hey. You still live over on Millcross, right?
A cold, pragmatic dread washed over me. Millcross. The exact area the MRA had just warned about. Why was she asking? It couldn't be a social call.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Every instinct told me to ignore it. Engaging with her was a guaranteed path to more frustration. She was drama. She was complication. She was the embodiment of the world that looked down on my father and me.
But another part of me, the part that remembered building pillow forts and sharing dreams, couldn't ignore the strange timing of her message. The part that was still, despite everything, dependable.
I typed back, my reply as blunt and straightforward as I could make it.
Arthur: Yes. Why?
The response was immediate. Typing bubbles appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again. She was hesitating. That was unlike her.
Finally, her message came through.
Elara: My car service canceled. Dad's out of town. I'm stuck at Kaelen's party in Dockside. It's stupid. I know. But is there any way…?
The message trailed off. She was asking me for a favor. Me. The textbook. The tryhard. The Baseline.
She was in the advisory zone. Alone. And she was scared. She'd never admit it, but the hesitation in her typing was a scream.
I looked at the news alert still on my screen. Kragg. Extremely dangerous. Do not approach.
I looked at the journal entry on my desk. It still sucks.
A conflict of logic and… something else. Something older. My father's resigned face flashed in my mind. "Just make sure it's something they can't automate."
Being a decent human being was something they couldn't automate. It was one of the few things left that was purely, uniquely Baseline.
With a sigh that felt like it carried the weight of my entire sixteen years, I picked up the slate again.
Arthur: Send me the address. Stay inside. I'm coming.
I didn't wait for her response. I stood up, grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, and walked out of my room.
My father was dozing in his armchair in the living room, the news still murmuring softly on the screen. I paused at the door.
"Going out for a bit," I said softly.
He stirred, blinking. "Hmm? Everything okay?"
"Elara's stuck. Just going to walk her home," I said, keeping my voice even. It wasn't entirely a lie.
He nodded, a faint, sad smile on his face. "You're a good boy, Arthur. Always looking out for people." He said it like it was a weakness.
I stepped out into the cool night air, the door clicking shut behind me. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and started walking toward the Dockside district, toward the MRA's advisory, toward a past I thought I'd left behind.
I was just being pragmatic. The most efficient way to resolve the situation was to retrieve her and leave. That was all.
But as I walked into the deepening shadows of the city, a strange, unfamiliar heat began to coil in the pit of my stomach. A nervous reaction, I told myself. Nothing more.
It was a lie.