The Law of Averages

Chapter 4

"Bwahahaha! You should've seen your face!" chortled Doctor Mercury.

"No part of that was funny," Dan snapped irritably.

"Oh no! A ninety-seven year old man is trying to stab me! Whatever will I do!?" Mercury mocked in a high pitched whine.

"I've never been threatened before! I panicked!" Dan exclaimed, a light tint of red creeping onto his face.

The doctor snorted dismissively. "Regardless of your uncouth behaviour, we've at least established a baseline for your abilities."

Dan's eyes lit up. Powers! He fought off another squeal of joy.

"I can teleport!" he announced proudly.

"Can you?" Mercury asked.

Dan paused.

"...Yes?" he asked meekly.

"Well go on then." Doctor Mercury gestured at the closed door. "Teleport outside. Into the hallway, mind you, not space."

"Ah—" Dan froze. He glanced between the doctor's serious face and the sealed exit.

Alright Dan, no big deal. Just a little bit of spacial displacement. Reality's got nothin' on you, buddy. He closed his eyes, trying to remember that feeling from before, that feeling of dull resignation, of benign acceptance, and of a single regret. He pictured himself standing outside the door, standing in that long empty hallway, standing in front of the stars.

He'd rather be over there.

A moment passed, and Dan peeked out from behind his eyelids. A large window facing Neptune greeted him. He stood in the outside hallway, exactly where he'd pictured himself. The door behind him slid open, and Mercury strolled forward, scratching his head.

"I'd rather thought you would fail at that," Mercury admitted sheepishly. "Well done."

Dan beamed.

"Teleportation is a rare ability," the doctor continued. "We'll have to test your limits later, but you've got all your clothes on, so you can obviously take things with you to some extent. The technology for that is almost prohibitively expensive, even for me. You could probably get a decent job as some sort of courier back on Earth."

And just like that, Dan's good feelings were chased away. "Right," he said slowly, reeling a bit from emotional whiplash. "Other Earth. Other dimension. Because that's a thing now."

Dan swayed in place, feeling woozy. "I'm in space. This is a space station." He blinked down at Doctor Mercury, who was giving him a knowing look.

"Hmph, that took longer to sink in than I thought it would." Mercury nodded to himself. "Go back inside and lie down, kid. Sleep off the panic, you'll feel better."

Dan opened his mouth but found that he had no words. He took a few robotic steps inside the medical bay, and collapsed in the closest chair.

Mercury awkwardly patted his shoulder. "I'll get you something to eat, later. Just... take a nap. Try not to think about things. It'll go better for you."

Dan didn't quite register the words. Dimly, he recognized the sound of footsteps, then a door closing, then nothing. Just him, alone. The room was quiet, the station, silent. There were no subtle vibrations along the floor, no quiet humming in the background, just the smell of antiseptic and the sound of his own breathing; nothing here was how he expected it to be. After a lifetime of living in a city, the silence was more jarring than anything else.

Where had all of his excitement gone? Wasn't this what he had wanted, what he had wished for, once upon a time? A grand adventure, a chance to make his mark? Shouldn't he be celebrating? He was free now, in a way that few would ever experience. His obligations had been erased, his past, reset. He could be what he wanted to be, do what he wanted to do. He was living the dream of office drones everywhere. He should be happy. He wanted to be happy.

He really did.

Instead, he could only imagine his cozy, if old, apartment. He could only wish for his comfortable, if boring job. He could only picture his beautiful, if bland girlfriend. He could only remember what he had lost.

He was struck by a somewhat insane feeling of indignation. Fiction had lied to him. This wasn't better at all.

He wanted to laugh, but he could only cry.

________________

Dan felt better. Nothing made you reevaluate your positions faster than weeping like a small child. He was refreshed, clear-headed, ready to face this shiny new world he had found himself in.

So what if he was missing home? He could find a new home! So what if his work experience could no longer be verified? He could find new opportunities in a different field! So what if he missed his girlfriend? He could find a new girlfriend! He had superpowers now, how hard could it be?

Besides, the doctor had told him that finding his way back home was almost impossible. Almost. If Dan could be dragged into this dimension, surely a way existed to return. All he had to do was search for it. How hard could it possibly be?

The first place he'd ask for help would be, as much as he hated the idea, from Spackle the Spaceship. Kidnapper that she was, perhaps Dan could guilt her into returning him to his home. Doctor Mercury certainly spoke about the ship as if it was sentient. So long as communication was possible, the possibility existed.

If that fell through then... well, he'd just have to think of something else. This was a universe with superpowers after all (and he really really needed to get the details on that), there were bound to be all sorts of fantastical methods floating around. Hell, even he could—

He could teleport.

Oh.

Ohhh.

This was a terrible plan.

...

Dan closed his eyes, and focused on home. He focused on the sound of bustling people, of car horns and traffic jams, he focused on the smell of rust, and paint, and smog. He focused on the feeling of wind in his air and the sun on his face and concrete beneath his feet.

He wanted to be there.

Dan opened his eyes, and there he was. Except, something felt off. His apartment building loomed large overhead, its familiar red brick a comfort to his eyes. Above that, the windows: they were glass, as expected, no supernatural superpowered uber-smart-glass made of holograms and mad science. Dan could stare at the windows without confusion or anxiety. But beyond them hung the sign, and that's where things started to go wrong.

Pearson Hotel, it read, and that, that was not the name he remembered. He was still okay, though, It was just a little change. It's entirely possible that his memory had gotten a bit fried in his trip through dimensions. Maybe he hadn't been living in an apartment for the past five years. Maybe he'd been living out of a hotel. That was fine. That was perfectly normal.

He walked forward, careful to keep his eyes on the doors and nowhere else. He could hear the sounds of traffic behind him, he could smell that dank city air, but only his eyes could tell him the truth. He pulled open his apartment's hotel's antique doors—Those had been there before, right?—and stepped inside.

The interior was different. Not under minor construction different, but rather different era different. There were no modern tile floors, no granite countertops, no worn leather couches. Instead, he felt like he'd walked into a scene out of a western. Wooden counters and floor, antique furniture, a hand-crank elevator, and what appeared to be a bank of all things, complete with a middle-aged lady in a bonnet patiently sitting in the teller's seat.

Ah, Pearson Hotel. Now Dan remembered. His apartment complex had bought the place almost three decades ago, refurbished the inside, and renamed it. The only reason he even knew about the change was a framed newspaper article that sat in one of the hallways. Huh.

It made sense, he supposed. Different dimension, different history. Why did his head feel funny?

He heard someone calling for him, a concerned woman's voice echoing from somewhere in the distance, but he didn't care. He wanted to— He needed to leave. No teleportation, that's how he got into this mess. Good ol' feet, they had never led him wrong before (Except for that one time when he wandered into a spaceship, but he wasn't going to think about that). He rushed back out the doors, but crashed into someone in his haste. It felt a bit like he'd hit a brick wall. He flopped to the ground with a groan, nursing a bruised shoulder.

"Watch where you're going," a gruff voice said.

Dan looked up, an apology on his lips. "Sorrrrry..." he trailed off, frozen.

"What?" the man asked. He wore a loose sleeveless shirt, revealing his arms and a bit of his chest. His skin glowed bright silver where Dan had hit him. Dan watched as the metallic color—because his skin couldn't possibly be made of metal—faded away to a smooth tan.

Yeah, Dan was done. He missed the nice normal space station.

"You okay there buddy?" The man looked a bit concerned, now.

"Sorry," Dan repeated himself. "I wasn't paying attention." It wasn't the metal man's fault that Dan couldn't cope. Being polite had never hurt anybody.

"Sure thing pal, just watch where you're going next time." Metal guy gave him a serious nod, and moved on. Dan followed the fellow with his eyes, staring incredulously as he strolled past a woman with a fuzzy cat's tail poking out the back of her skirt.

Oh, hell. He had to get out of here. Dan closed his eyes and dreamed of that familiar room, of linen sheets and pointy scalpels and old man smell. He found himself back in Doctor Mercury's space station, orbiting the planet Neptune, still far away from home.

But that was fine. It was much better than the alternative.