The Law of Averages

Chapter 17

Two days passed incredibly quickly. Dan had spent most of them simply relaxing and decompressing with his friends. Mercury had been right about at least one thing: Dan needed some time to process things. His words and resolutions had been said on an impulse, but Dan couldn't find it in himself to take them back. He wanted to make a difference in the world.

So before he even knew it, the time had come. Dan found himself outside of Mercury's lab clutching a box of homemade oatmeal cookies. He was dressed in gym shorts and a form-fitting microfiber shirt, clothing that Abby had basically forced upon him, in preparation for whatever the doctor had planned for him. Dan had seen the doctor's old training room, filled with dust and elaborate machines, on his very first day. He expected a great deal of physical activity.

Dan's friends had not been particularly worried by his decision to train with Marcus. Both Margaret and Abby knew, in vague terms, that the old man was the primary investor in Dan's courier business and an old friend. Both of those things were technically true, if a bit literal and misleading.

Still, Dan felt a little robbed that he hadn't milked much sympathy out of his friends. They just couldn't understand why Dan was so nervous. It was difficult to convey Mercury's shadiness without meeting him in person. As far as Abby and Margaret were concerned, the doctor was doing Dan a favor. Hence the cookies.

And now Dan was stalling. He stared at the sealed metal door. Another step forward and the motion sensors lining the frame would pick him up. The door would open, fwoosh, and Dan would be able to see whatever the doctor had prepared for him. He just had to step forward.

Just one step.

Often one's imagination would build up an object of fear into something far mightier, far more imposing, than it could possibly be. It was normal, natural, just another expression of mankind's fear of the unknown. This was not Dan's failing. Dan was not afraid of the awful scenarios that his imagination whispered to him. There was no point in that.

Because he was quite certain that Mercury's imagination could trump his own any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Which was the problem, really. But he'd made it this far, what was one more step? Dan squared his shoulders, straightened his back, and took a step forward.

Fwoosh.

The door opened, revealing the doctor's lab. Immediately, Dan felt like he'd stepped into the Twilight Zone. The room was, while not clean, at least orderly. The tables had been pushed to the sides of the room and the scattered pieces of scratch paper had been separated into neat piles. The floor was clean of debris and liquid, and shined like it was new. In the center of the room, the doctor kneeled next to a bizarre machine.

At first glance it resembled an electric adjustable bed, the kind that you might find at a hospital. It was made mostly of steel; a long, flat, segmented frame that held a cheap, thin mattress. Its legs, all four of them, were thick and bolted to the floor. At that point, the similarities started to fade.

A pair of oversized electrical cables were plugged into the base of the bed, each as thick as Dan's arm. They drew their power from a massive generator tucked away in the corner of the lab. Beneath the bed, where a motor would normally be placed to control the movement of the frame, was a glass cylinder filled with a frothing golden liquid.

Over the top of the bed, suspended from the ceiling by thin wires, hovered a brass circlet. The delicate piece of jewelry looked comically undersized compared to the steel contraption beneath it. The circlet was positioned above where a person's head would rest if they were laying prone on the bed.

Marcus grunted from his place next to the bed, "You're early."

Dan carefully hid his surprise. His dallying outside of the door had actually made him late by several minutes. It was probably best not to mention that.

"Sorry," he replied instead. "Nerves, I guess."

"Well if you're here you might as well help." Mercury motioned him over impatiently.

Oddly enough, Dan felt comforted by the gruff demeanour. The doctor appeared to be taking things seriously. Dan strolled across the room cautiously, half expecting the floor to drop out from under him. He wouldn't put it past Marcus to rig some sort of surprise to test Dan's situational awareness. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, nothing happened. Dan's movement went uncontested and he arrived beside the old man.

"Hold this," Mercury demanded, barely sparing him a glance. The doctor busily shoved a tray of syringes into Dan's chest, sending him staggering back a step. The doctor's other hand disappeared the box of cookies.

"Where the hell were you hiding these," Dan muttered incredulously.

Marcus ignored him in favor of producing a drill motor from somewhere within his lab coat. Several screws were rapidly tightened around the cylinder filled with golden liquid. Marcus tapped on the glass a few times.

Tink tink tink.

Small pockets of air bubbled to the top, moving through the liquid like molasses.

"It has been a quite a few years since I've made this stuff," Marcus remarked absently.

Tink tink tink.

More air bubbled up from the bottom of the container.

"What is it?" Dan asked, eyeing the brew with distaste.

"A paralytic, among other things," Marcus replied. "For you."

Dan closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. "Why would I need a paralytic?"

Marcus shrugged. "For your own safety."

Dan tapped his foot against the ground impatiently. He was wise to the man's game by now, and Dan wasn't going to humor him by getting annoyed. That would just encourage him.

Marcus hummed to himself, squinting down at the liquid for a few more seconds. At last he stood up, stretching out his back with a series of horrifying pops.

After a contented sigh, the doctor turned to Dan. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to put you into a simulation of the aftermath of a major villain attack as a crisis volunteer. You'll experience it as if you're there, but I'll be giving you instructions all the way through."

Dan frowned. "I'm not sure I follow."

Mercury rolled his eyes. He jabbed a bony hand towards the bed, where the brass circlet dangled.

"That's a Neuralyzer. I designed it."

"Please tell me it won't erase my memory," Dan interrupted urgently.

Marcus scowled. "It lets me show you things that aren't actually there. We're gonna use it to throw you into the deep end of the pool."

Dan stared at the unassuming piece of metal.

"You built your own virtual reality helmet?" he asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Virtual—? No! It uses electrical impulses to stimulate your brain and safely control your visual cortex."

"That sounds an awful lot like a virtual reality helmet," Dan pointed out.

Marcus stomped the ground with irritation. "Well it's not! It's a delicate and dangerous piece of equipment, not a child's toy!"

"Dangerous?" Dan repeated, suddenly eyeing the thing as if it might explode.

"Of course! Running electricity through your brain has risks no matter how clever the design," the doctor elaborated.

He plucked the tray of syringes out of Dan's hands. "Now go sit down on the bed while I prep you for your trip."

An odd way to describe it. The more Dan heard, the less comfortable he felt. "You haven't told me why we need that gold syrup."

"So you don't flail right off the bed of course," Mercury replied absently. He knelt down, syringe in hand, and fiddled with the cylinder beneath the bed. When he rose again, the syringe was filled with golden liquid. Even within the plastic container, the fluid bubbled and frothed violently.

Dan took several steps back. "Liquid should not look like that."

Marcus cackled.

"I'm serious," Dan insisted.

"Don't be a child. It's perfectly safe." The doctor flicked the syringe a few times, and the bubbling slowed.

Dan frowned—he'd been doing that a lot, lately—and took a seat on the bed.

"Right. A few things to keep in mind," Marcus began. He wiggled the syringe. "This will keep your body immobile, but it won't feel that way once the Neuralyzer is on your head. Feel free to move about as needed within the simulation, it'll all be in your mind anyway. The whole scenario will basically be a controlled hallucination."

Dan raised his hand. "Are you sure that this won't erase my memory? Because it sounds an awful lot like it's going to erase my memory."

"Quite sure. You'll know, intellectually, that you are in a simulation, but you will struggle to feel that way. It will seem entirely real. Which is the point, really." Mercury replied. "Also take note, this does not disable your power. The area that I'm dropping you into is a modified version of Atlanta, and your teleportation should feel like it's working as usual within the bounds of the city. Do not try to jump out of the city. I'm not entirely sure what will happen, but the most likely scenario is that you'll leave the bed and appear wherever you're trying to go. While paralyzed."

"But if I stick to Atlanta I won't teleport?" Dan clarified with trepidation.

"The Atlanta that you'll see is not an accurate representation of the city." Marcus explained patiently. "You can use your power freely within it without triggering it in reality. It'll be like trying to teleport into a painting or a television show. Nothing should happen out here. It'll just be in your head."

"Okay." Dan acknowledged uneasily. "Is there some reason why we aren't just using a VR helmet? I saw a few online—"

"Bah!" Marcus declared. "Those trashy things are just screens. My Neuralyzer forces you to experience a situation. There will be no closing your eyes and rationalizing away your horror! You'll have to actually deal with the emotional impact of your surroundings."

Dan needed to stop asking questions. Every answer just worried him more.

But he couldn't help himself.

"Why aren't you selling this?" He indicated the Neuralyzer. "People would pay a fortune to experience new things without having to leave their beds."

"Hmph! Humanity does not need another reason to ignore the world around them," the doctor scoffed.

After a moment, he added, "Also, it's quite illegal. On Earth. That's why I scrapped my last one."

"What?"

Marcus shrugged. "The design was based off my observations of electroconvulsive therapy, but I had to move in a more... radical direction, to achieve the results that I wanted. Things escalated outside the bounds of the law. Fortunately, those laws do not apply out here.

"Speaking of which, have some mushrooms." Marcus produced a crumpled ziploc bag from his coat and shoved it into Dan's hands.

"What!?"

"The psilocybin will ease the transition from reality to simulation," Marcus explained unhelpfully as he bustled over to a nearby laptop.

"I'm not going through your insane disaster training while trippin' balls!" Dan bellowed.

Marcus cackled.

"I'm not joking Marcus!" Dan insisted. "I don't care how amusing you think it'll be, I'm not eating these!" He hurled the bag at the doctor's face.

"Oh fine, spoil my fun," Mercury grumbled, deftly snagging the projectile out of the air. "You don't actually need to take them."

He paused, then smirked. "That's what the serum is for."

"What!?"