The Law of Averages

Chapter 84

Dan stared at Abby. Abby stared at the television screen. The man on the television screen stared into the camera as he spewed whatever propaganda he was trying to promote. There was much staring to be had in Dan's living room.

He couldn't be sure how angry his girlfriend was. She was vibrating slightly, and the color of her face seemed to swing wildly between bright red and pale as death. This had been her default state, ever since Dan had brought the little television back from his sojourn underground.

Apoplectic, he decided. That's what she was. As accurate a description as any. And, as the tape played on, her expression only darkened.

Rewinding the tape had been a trick. Dan was old enough to remember VHS tapes, even if CD's had replaced them by the time he was old enough to buy things for himself, and had managed to carefully roll the magnetic tape back onto its spool. Even so, age had taken its toll. The first half of the video was virtually unplayable, consisting of a few static frames accompanied by a screeching sort of sound not unlike that of a pissed off barn owl. Maybe with time and specialist tools it could be restored, but for now, Dan would have to be satisfied with the few seconds that he'd already seen.

Click!

The tape ended, and the screen went dark. Abby blinked at the noise, as if coming out of a reverie, before turning to Dan with a thunderous expression.

"Tell. Me. Everything!"

He did. He had never intended to keep this from her, which won a bare few points in his favor. It did nothing to tip the scales. Abby was furious.

"You walked into a vigilante's lair face-first!" she berated, shaking him by his shoulders with ill-repressed worry. "You didn't have the slightest clue what was in there!"

He caught her by her wrists, carefully lifting them free. "I was careful, Abby," he explained. "I found a way to clear out traps with my power! I don't even have to get that close to 'em!" Dan couldn't keep the pride out of his last statement.

Surprise seemed to stifle anger for a moment, as Abby processed his statement. She rallied awfully quickly. "How could you possibly know if you've cleared away all the dangers? You obviously didn't remove everything!" She jabbed a finger towards the television to emphasize her point.

"Just the traps," Dan agreed, wrapping his hand around her quivering finger. He softly applied pressure until he found her palm, and her hand wrapped tightly around his. "Anything that resembled anything from that death trap Gregoir took a stroll through."

The grip turned painful. "And the things that didn't resemble that?"

"I left it alone," Dan squeaked, aware that he was treading dangerous ground but not entirely sure how he'd gotten there.

"So really it was just blind luck that you weren't killed!" she hissed, pulling him toward her. She met his eyes with a glare. "What if there had been a— a bomb or something! A proximity bomb! Just sitting on a table somewhere!? Could you have recognized something like that?"

Dan scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "Gregoir had mentioned that Captain Quantum wasn't willing to risk damaging his house despite that corridor of death. I don't know how a bomb would figure into that worldview but..."

"Exactly!" Abby jabbed him in the belly, triumphant. "You don't know! You couldn't know! You put yourself at risk! And me! And the whole neighborhood! You didn't have the slightest clue what you'd find down there, and you went in anyway!"

Dan rubbed his stomach with a wince. "I think you're being a bit alarmist here, darling."

"You're being alarmist!" she shouted back hysterically. "Your face is being alarmist! You could've died!"

"Okay." It was time for executive action. He grabbed Abby around the waist and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," he breathed softly, holding her close.

"You can't keep treating this like a comic book, Danny!" her muffled voice protested into his shoulder. "These vigilantes are dangerous. You saw what happened to Gregoir!"

"I was careful," Dan repeated, before adding, "and Gregoir was fine!"

She scowled, pulling herself out of his arms. "He looked like he had taken a stroll through a war zone, Daniel!"

"Well."

She stomped her foot angrily. "No! You have no clue how bad this could've been! Do you even know who the People are?"

Dan's contrite expression melted away. His brow furrowed. "No. Something bad, I assume."

Abby's arms flailed upward in the ultimate expression of exasperation. "Yes! Bad! Very bad! They are terrorists, Danny! A radical splinter group of ex-vigilantes, cast off from a city-sponsored team from the fifties! They are as far from good as you can get." She paused, taking a long, pacifying breath. "These people have targeted my family for years. They're the ones who tried to kidnap me back when I was a little girl. They're—" Her breath hitched, and her eyes hardened. "They're the reason I don't have parents. This isn't a game, Daniel."

"Oh." There wasn't much more he was capable of saying. This had suddenly gotten far more serious than he'd had any reason to expect. He had foreseen a brief telling off for taking risks, then some gentle teasing after he admitted his collar theory. Not— not whatever this was.

Abby wasn't crying. Her eyes were dry, her expression focused. It was an old pain, then. She'd long run out of tears. Dan opened his mouth. "I'm..." What? Sorry? He could run the whole gamut of vague platitudes and not make an ounce of difference. He took a different path.

Slowly, gently, he wrapped her back in a hug. "Okay," Dan repeated, squeezing her tightly. "What do you want to do?"

Abby's voice steeled. "If Captain Quantum was a member of the People, if he had any contact with them at all, we need to take this to my grandmother."

"Ah." Courage, Dan. Be strong. "If you think it's necessary, then that's what we'll do."

Abby's face lightened considerably, and a warm, wet smile crossed her face. "I think it is, Danny, I'm sorry. I know you wanted this to be your, our, secret, but this is too important."

"I know, I know." Dan waved her off. He wasn't such a petulant child that he'd fight over a lost cause. This situation was clearly beyond him. It had been a childish dream to begin with, to pillage an ex-vigilante's lair. Though, it seemed as if he'd gotten off lucky.

"How are these, er, People so dangerous? How are they even still around?" He'd have thought Nana Terminator would've ripped them asunder after the initial kidnapping attempt.

"They aren't," Abby replied, "or, at least, we think they aren't. The problem is that they've always worked in cells. Grandma thinks that she got them all, but its almost impossible to be sure."

Dan sighed, shaking his head. "Why did they target your family, anyways?" The question slipped out without his consent, and he couldn't take it back. He could only hope Abby's peace with her past grief was genuine.

"They're crazy," she answered with a grimace. "The People of Chicago were a hero group, sponsored by the city. Grandpa was the one who negotiated on their behalf, and won them their charter. They were fairly popular for a few years, but they had only just announced their intention to make a national team when the Vigilante Acts were proposed and things went sideways from there."

"They didn't want to quit," Dan guessed.

Abby shrugged. "They could've joined the police force. Got some training. Some real authority. Federal backing. Plenty of vigilantes, the better ones, the less destructive ones, took their pardons, and enrolled in law enforcement like proper heroes."

"And the People?"

"They splintered," Abby said simply. "Spread across the country like a plague. At first, they just kept up their vigilantism, but that could never last. Eventually, they escalated. Interfered with crime scenes. Brawled with villains in the streets, then fought the police when they tried to stop them. Lunatics, one and all."

Dan doubted it was that simple, but knew better than to argue. It wasn't his history. Even so, he couldn't help but point out, "The video mentioned that they were betrayed."

Abby snorted dismissively. "Propaganda. A federal mandate outlawing your chosen profession isn't a betrayal, Danny. You didn't see any hangmen rioting in the streets when we banned the rope."

That was... possibly a fair point. He certainly didn't know enough about the subject to dispute it.

"Alright, so we're calling Mrs. Summers," Dan said with resignation. "How much are we telling her? And at what point do we bring in the police?"

Abby's cocked her head quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Dan explained slowly, "she presumably doesn't know everything about my power. Do we explain how I found Quantum's lair? And how I made it inside? The wall is still there, y'know."

Abby made to respond, but Dan continued before she could speak. "Also, just how much legal authority does she have in this kind of situation? I get that she was scary-special-forces woman at some point, but isn't she, officially, the owner of a large tech company? If we're putting the existence of Quantum's base out there now, after asking Gregoir cover it up, I don't want to get in any legal trouble. For me, or him, or you. Or anyone, really."

Abby's mouth clicked shut. Her brow furrowed. "I didn't think about Gregoir," she admitted.

"It'd be pretty rude of me to screw him over after he did us a favor," Dan added with a shrug. "I'd prefer to avoid that, if possible."

She ran an unsteady hand through her dark tresses, twirling them around her finger. "I don't know how this will effect him. We could—"

A phone rang. A sharp, piercing BBBRRRRINNNGGGG!

Dan flinched, and turned in the direction of the noise. He stared in bewilderment.

"That thing works!?" he asked aloud, stunned stupid.

It was a relic. An old, wall mounted rotary phone. Just a wooden box with metal dials and a hokey headset. It was pretty, in a sophisticated-old-person type way. Dan thought it was an antique reproduction, and hadn't bothered peeling it off the wall. It added some contrast to the room in the face of his advanced speakers and the television plucked straight out of a science fiction film.

And now it was ringing.

Abby was the first to recover, tentatively walking towards the phone and lifting the headset. The ringing ended with an abrupt click, leaving silence in its wake. She slowly put the phone to her ear.

"Newman residence?" she stated uncertainly.

Someone spoke on the other end, and Abby's face flushed. "You're spying on me!?" she hissed quietly, and Dan's stomach dropped into his feet.

"No, I wasn't going to—" Abby's protest was drowned out by what seemed like shouting. She glanced awkwardly to Dan, then gestured to the phone.

"It's for you," she stated. The blush on her face deepened. "It's Mama Ana."

Dan couldn't recall the action, but he suddenly found himself holding the headset. He put it to his ear with a mechanical motion.

"Hello?" he croaked, his voice suddenly dry.

"Mr. Newman," a familiar, cold voice said, "it appears that we need to talk."

"Oh." His voice came weak and stilted. Dan rolled the matron's request around his head, feeling faint. "I'm not sure that's necessary."

"You've managed to blunder your way into the lair of one of my old enemies. By complete accident." Anastasia Summers' voice was as dry as a desert. After a long moment of consideration, as if her next accusation was equally as grave, she added, "While courting my granddaughter."

"Abby picked the house," Dan blurted out.