Chapter 70 (1/2)

Dan's next conversation with Abby was short and sweet.

”How'd it go?” she asked.

”She's fuckin' creepy,” he replied, his voice shaking slightly. ”I think it's finally time to call your grandma.”

”Background check?”

”Background check.”

Information was power, and Dan had far too little of both.

Matilda had him... concerned. As a seasoned professional with enough acclaim to rub shoulders with veteran police officers, there was a certain amount of expectation involved regarding her skills and knowledge. That was fine, Dan could handle smart, talented people.

He hadn't expected her to know the classified history of his faux-upgrade. Maybe he should have. It was part of her job, after all, to understand upgrades. It wasn't all that far-fetched for her to have contacts within the upgrade industry. It was odd that she happened to know about his specific upgrade, seeing as it was both rare and unpopular, but that wasn't what had aroused his suspicions.

”You'll want for power eventually. Your kind always do!”

It was a hint. Dan was not the first natural power that she'd worked with. It wasn't a slip of the tongue, no matter how impassioned it had been. It was a hook, trying to reel him in. The phrasing, as inflammatory as it sounded to his ear, suggested something entirely different in this new world. It was a statement of widely acknowledged fact. A truth of the world, not an insult.

Beyond that, it was a message.

”You are not alone.”

It might have been tempting, if Dan wasn't who he was.

Natural powers were vanishingly rare. Those 'open' about their status were required to register with the government, and were placed on watch lists for the rest of their lives. Lonely lives, at that. Being on a watch list was never a good conversation starter.

The country at large distrusted natural powers. This bias was not a subtle one. Film, literature, video games, natural powers were portrayed as the enemy. It wasn't even loathing, so much as regretful shunning. Natural powers were uncontrollable, unstable, dangerous. It wasn't the person's fault; a Natural couldn't help what they had become. The person was to be pitied, the power, to be avoided, or destroyed.

Men like Gregoir were seen as the exception, rather than the rule. A man whose natural power was, on its face, simple and harmless. A man accepted by the public, and placed in a role of respect and authority. That the man himself was weirdly, compellingly charismatic only helped cement his place as an oddity. A Natural should be divorced from society, for their own good and for the good of others. They couldn't help but be a threat.

Matilda had tried to play on this lonely insecurity. In her eyes, Dan should have suffered from a lifetime of self-loathing. He should have been afraid of his own abilities, cowering from experimentation, struggling to fit in. Shouldn't he want a place to grow, safe with his peers? A place where he could gain control over this curse?

How unfortunate that he saw his power as the greatest thing since sliced bread. He hadn't even caught her hidden meaning until he was back home.

Still, the blatant manipulation reeked of a more sinister purpose.

”The offer could still be genuine,” Abby postulated quietly, some time after being caught up on Dan's encounter. Her words were clearly half-hearted, playing Devil's advocate for the sake of being thorough.

The pair were relaxing on Abby's couch, inside the large condo she had rented for her stay in Austin, discussing their options. Dan studied his girlfriend, noting her slightly subdued posture. It had been her idea to further involve themselves with Matilda, and though Dan had elected to go against her advice, she was clearly suffering guilt from what might have been.

Dan pulled her closer to him, grinning as she burrowed into his side. It wouldn't hurt to give her some reassurance. Nothing was certain, yet.

”Maybe,” he conceded easily. ”I could be reading too much into it.”

”But you don't think so,” Abby mumbled into his shoulder.

”But I don't think so,” he agreed, tucking her head beneath his chin.

Abby sighed, the sound caught somewhere between regret and embarrassment. ”Yeah, me neither.”

”So some creepy weirdo is interested in me,” Dan summarized dryly. ”Fantastic.”

”What else is new?” Abby grumbled, shifting onto her back. Her head ended up in Dan's lap, looking up at his face. ”It'll take a while to investigate her, even with Mama Ana pulling the strings. How are you gonna handle the crazy woman in the meantime?”

Dan leaned back with a groan. ”It would be great if I could just ignore her, but somehow I don't see that happening.”