Reality Bytes

Sitting at a table in the brand new, state-of-the-art, Frederick H. Big High School library, Ellen Drummond is conflicted. While, on the one hand, she has someone helping her trawl through years and years of archival records of her future self’s misdeeds, she had forgotten a crucial fact about herself in the lead up to this study session: Ellen Drummond hates studying.

Pinching the bridge of her nose to stop the headache building just behind her eyes, she pushes back from the papers spread in front of her and complains to Sam, “So you had to study up on super people all the time? How the hell did you manage that?”

With his arms above his head in the air, stretching to warm up for the long upcoming task before going down to one of his laptops he keeps for connecting to unknown networks, Sam turns to respond to Ellen. “This part of the work is not as bad as it used to be, between digital archiving and word recognition software. They've made it a lot easier to get started.” Sam lets out a sigh before continuing “At least I'm used to it from my home schooling.”

“Home schooled, huh? Lemme guess — hero parents wanted to raise you in noble traditions of justice and peace on Earth!” Ellen laughs, striking a corny pose, saluting and staring into the middle distance. She’s distracted from her mockery by Sam’s laptop. Modern technology never fails to get her attention; she can’t help but be fascinated despite her confusion.

“Well, you're not wrong there, not fully right mind you, but not wrong.” Sam let out, so distracted by his thoughts that he did not even see the pose Ellen made or hear the tone of her mockery. “It's not just my parents in my case: sister, cousins, grandparents and what other words there are for people in families is/was/or will be a hero, or at any rate they will have powers, even if they did not put the cape on.”

Starting to get a small bit visibly depressed at the topic and as if to try and change the topic, he adds “Anyway we need to go back to digging. Any luck on your end?”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone dude. Your entire family has powers and does research about them? That’s intense. What’s it like growing up with a bunch of people who, like, know what their whole deal is gonna be? Like, powers wise.”

Ellen totally forgets about her pile of books and newspaper articles at this point, not that she’d even looked at most of them. She turns her chair so she’s sitting backwards on it facing Sam, arms crossed over the back.

Realizing he made a social misstep and that he is not getting out of this one, Sam leans back in his chair.

“Well I know part of the family does that. I’m not too sure about the specifics, but we're most likely to take after the powers of our parents in either having a copy of one of their power sets, or some kind of mix and there is no way to know if there is going to be a 'Generation effect'," he does the air quotes gesture, "where the powers are stronger and/or changed in some way.” He makes sure to take a few moments to order his thoughts and wait for Ellen to digest that before going on.

“The next likely thing to happen is that you either get new powers, with no discernible link to your parents', or you get one of the old and/or lost power sets from someone far back in the family. Again, there is no way to count for the 'Generation effect' here and it can be messy work to tell, from what I hear, when it does happen.”

Sam is starting to do lecturer gesturing at this point, only stopping when he gets to the sore point for him to talk about. Once more taking a few moments to mentally prepare himself for the bombshell part, he leans his head back to look at the ceiling, and so he can avoid eye contact with Ellen.

“And then you get people like me in the family, where we're born with no powers and not showing any signs of getting them as we get older.” He just waits here for Ellen to pick up on the contradiction of the facts.

It takes her a moment to digest the verbal textbook she's been given, but eventually Ellen catches up to Sam, looking confused at his last statement.

“Wait, but you… None? I mean, I don’t know the rest of family or anything, but if you’re the ‘no powers’ one, I don’t think I want to meet the rest of ‘em. How the hell’d you get like... *this* then?” She gestures at him with both hands.

“Don’t get me wrong, I got powers now, but it's not the same origin as the family. We have an unusually high compatibility with the 'Procedure', that being a generic term in the super world for an operation to give powers so when it does happen, then that's what is most likely going to happen.”

“But that’s not what happened to me," his tone starts to darken, "I'll give you the short version and say that the odds of any major complication is almost non-existent, and that my young cousin was the same as me. But where I was able to hold off having anything done to me, it was not so lucky for my cousin. My cousin's parents gave the go head for her procedure and well... she got lucky or unlucky, based on your view.” His tone is still dark as sarcasm starts to bite into his words.

“She has a lot of power, but she couldn't control it to the point she needed to be placed in special containment... And there was not a damned thing anyone could do to help.”

Sam gets a tissue out and starts rubbing his eyes before any tears can form. “I was starting to push the age of when they'd do it to me and with it done with her, I knew it was only a matter of time. I held off as even with low risks is the fact that I did not want a dice roll to set my life, and with what happen to her... I set my plan into action and turned to magic”

“Oh shit.” Ellen whispers, due to shock more than awareness of their location. “Sorry Sam, I…didn't realize that was gonna be such a heavy subject.” She shifts uncomfortably, unsure whether to offer a hug or give him some space. She settles for a gentle but firm back pat, placing a hand for support.

“We can stop now. I mean, you don’t have to talk about yourself anymore, if you don’t wanna. That’s, uh, cool,” she gives a few firm pats, “But thanks for telling me what you did though. Turns out you're more like me than I thought, so that helps. Or, it could help. I dunno, we'll see, I guess...”

Ellen scoots away from Sam to let him recompose himself, and turns back to her stack of study material on the table. She sighs tiredly before starting to flip through the next series of articles on the pile with newfound resolve.

“I hope it does help then.” Sam turns his head to long black gloves he has on, moves his right hand over the top of his left arm and traces it all the way down, the same arms that have the metal tattoos burned right into his flesh, and in a small voice whispers, “I only wish I could have done better, I may be the worst one to hurt her...”

Sam does a breathing exercise to help get his self recomposed, and once he has done, he acts like it never happened and lets out in a slightly upbeat voice,

“Well, back to the grindstone.”