The Law of Averages

Chapter 91

The little group quickly relocated to the living room. Dan was shooed away to the couch by Abby, who went straight to the kitchen to make drinks for their guests. She dug through Dan's cabinets with the confidence of a person who had placed everything there to be found, and quickly had a pot of coffee boiling merrily away.

Freya made small talk with Dan about their shared Academy class, while Connor tossed in the occasional comment. Dan watched as the boy's leg bounced up and down continuously throughout their entire conversation. He seemed less composed than usual and his remarks lacked the sharp bite that they usually held. His mind was clearly elsewhere.

Fortunately, Abby quickly finished her work and joined in, smoking mugs of bitter caffeine in hand. With drinks distributed and energy levels slowly normalizing, the chatter drifted to a different topic. No one present had much tolerance for menial conversations, so more serious business was quickly brought to light.

"I don't really know where to begin," Dan admitted, as he ran a finger along the edge of his mug. He felt, now that the two APD-hopefuls were actually here in front of him, a little nervous about his plan. And more than a little guilty about the lies he was about to spin. It wouldn't be anything direct, nor any more dishonest than the lie he told every day about his power, but it still felt like a betrayal. It was a bittersweet feeling, confirmation that he truly felt that they were his friends.

Soon, he promised himself. Once everything with Anastasia was resolved, and his identity was secure, then he'd tell them. For now, the lie would have to suffice.

"Treat it like a transaction, Newman," Connor spoke up impatiently. "We're trading advice." He made a get-on-with-it motion, twirling his finger parallel to the ground. "I'm being irrationally generous by letting you go first, so hurry it up!"

Then again, sometimes lying came easy.

"More like uncharacteristically generous," Dan sniped back, rolling his eyes. "Alright, then. The rundown."

He flicked his eyes to Freya. "You remember Matilda Fairbanks?"

The statuesque Valkyrie raised one of her immaculate eyebrows. "The upgrade analyst?"

"The very same," Dan confirmed. He filled in Graham, "She shadowed one of our training exercises as a favor to our teacher. And after, she volunteered to train a few of us one on one."

The younger man nodded, repeating his finger motion.

This was where things got a little... deceitful. Dan took a deep breath. "I haven't mentioned it yet to Officer Tawny, but she's been harassing me ever since then. Phone calls, weird messages, and acting generally sketchy during our training sessions."

"What!?"

Freya's exclamation made him jump, and he found the blonde girl staring at him, aghast.

"She's been behaving inappropriately towards you?" Freya demanded, almost rising out of her seat. Her head jerked to Abby. "Did he tell you about this?"

"Not in the way you think," Abby replied in a bland monotone, flicking her hand dismissively. "The crazy old bat is obsessed with his mutation."

Abby's calm facade took the wind out of Freya's sails. The blonde slumped back into her seat. "Oh. Well, you should still say something to our professor," she told Dan. "He needs to know that his colleague is being unprofessional."

"That's..." Never gonna happen. "Next on my list," Dan lied. "I haven't gotten to the important bit yet."

He paused, schooling his features. "Matilda always seemed a bit off, and after she started harassing me I asked Abby's grandmother to look into her background."

There was a choked off sound, followed by a sputtering cough. Connor leaned over his knees, hacking and spitting, and covered in coffee. He held the mug loosely in front of himself, gripped between his thumb and index finger, as the steaming hot beverage splashed across his arm. Freya quickly moved forward, taking the choking man's cup, and pounding him on the back. Dan willed himself into his kitchen and retrieved a roll of paper towels. The younger man snagged the roll out of his hands, wiping off reddened skin with a groan and a wince.

"Graceful," Dan noted dryly.

"Don't— hhugh! Don't even start with me Newman!" Connor jabbed an accusatory finger in Dan's general direction, his eyes boggling out of his skull. "Did you really ask Anastasia Summers, the—" He paused, eyes flicking to Abby. "Um," he stammered out, "that is to say, her grandmother," he emphasized the latter word as if that in any way obfuscated what he was trying to communicate, "for a background report!? Really?"

Dan shrugged.

"You don't think that might have been a somewhat extreme level of scrutiny?" Connor pressed incredulously.

Dan could only shrug once more. "No, as it turns out, it was exactly the level of scrutiny that was called for. At that, he laid it all out. Everything that Anastasia had found out about Matilda, including her links to the man who had kidnapped Connor. The younger man's eyes hardened when the name Andros Bartholomew was brought into play.

No mention was made of Anastasia's demands, nor of their conflict, nor of secret base sitting beneath Dan's home. It twinged at his conscience to omit these details, but Dan comforted himself by promising that one day, soon, he would come clean.

The main issue that needed addressing was simple. "Anastasia left it up to me to alert the proper authorities. I'm running under the assumption that this is some sort of elaborate test to prove I'm not a total moron, but I wanted to run this by you two first."

"I'm not sure I understand," Freya interrupted abruptly. The girl's expression had grown more and more worried as Dan had laid out Anastasia's accusations towards Matilda. She wore a pronounced frown as she said, "This seems rather clear-cut to me. Presumably, Mrs. Summers left you with some form of evidence. You should simply turn that over to the APD."

"That's the thing," Dan explained, taking a long draw from his coffee. He used the time to plan how he wanted to phrase his next statement. "Anastasia implied that the APD would fail to handle it properly. To the extent of this Bartholomew guy getting away." He tried to word it gently, but there was no real way to cushion that blow.

Connor, with all his faith in the APD, looked less shattered than Dan had expected. The boy had just heard that his idol doubted the capabilities of his dream organization. Dan had been anticipating dumbstruck horror, but the younger man just seemed... frozen.

Freya was even less impacted, simply stating in a grim voice, "I'd like to see that evidence now."

Dan was caught off guard, having expected them to immediately jump to the APD's defense. Still, it didn't really change anything. After a quck mental rundown of his next few actions, he replied, "Gimme a second." His veil swallowed him, and he fell into the Gap.

There, in that endless starlight abyss, Dan had stashed Anastasia's phone. He plucked it from where it hung, suspended and motionless. It was a simple decision to leave it here, after he realized that his power could navigate t-space. The old lady had more than enough ways to spy on him already, Dan saw no need to give her another. Now, however, he wanted her to know what he was doing. More specifically, what he was handing over.

Another flex of his will sent him spinning to a different chunk of non-reality, where he had carefully stacked the documents he'd pilfered from the People's hammer-space vault. After a moment of consideration, he plucked out the stack that Abby had first laid hands on. It read like a simple register, only two pages long in total. Within, precisely documented, were the names and identities of former People vigilantes in Texas, only a decade out of date. This was not the kind of information that Dan should hand out willy nilly, but he needed to seize the initiative, and frankly he had zero problems exposing these people. He honestly doubted most of them were still alive.

So this was his play. He'd use Connor and Freya to confirm if this information was as crucial as he and Abby had assumed, while naming his source as Anastasia. He'd even come up with a reasonable lie for why she'd felt the need to give him such a thing, though he dearly hoped his two guests wouldn't think to ask.

No matter how the conversation proceeded, there was no way Anastasia wouldn't come looking for answers, at which point he'd make his offer. He'd open up whatever other People cache's she had been unable to get to, and she would build him an ironclad identity then leave him the hell alone.

It was a tentative, shaky plan, built on a set of assumptions about a woman who was both unpredictable and dangerous. It was also the only conclusion he was willing to accept. Simply leaving wasn't an option. He'd started a life here, and he refused to let someone shake that foundation. He refused to kowtow to her demands or be blackmailed. He'd left that version of himself behind. Past Dan had tried to claw his way out of the grave, but Present Dan was keeping a boot firmly on that corpse's head. He wouldn't lose his way again.

He dropped back into reality inside his bedroom, just so that his retrieval didn't seem so instantaneous. After loudly opening and closing his dresser, just for good measure, he willed himself back to his living room. Anastasia's phone went to Freya, who flicked it open and leafed through the pictures stored inside with a critical eye, while the papers went into the lap of the still shell-shocked Connor.

"This is what Anastasia gave me," Dan said, doing his best to keep his voice level and casual. "Let me know what you think."