Chapter 98 (1/2)

It had been a good long while since Dan had simply walked around in a populated area. He'd spent the first few weeks of his life in this new parallel simply wandering around downtown Austin, taking in the sights and sounds and strangeness of his surroundings. His delivery job with Marcus had practically mandated exposure to different locales, as the old crank had demanded everything from industrial goods to fast food. With no new demands coming in from Marcus, yet his cash flow remaining steady, there was little incentive to go outside and explore. Left to his own devices, Dan was less than adventurous.

He didn't much like that about himself. Dan was not blind to his own faults, though he seldom pondered them. The many mistakes that he'd made in the past few weeks had forced his hand, and had sent him into a state of self-reflection. More of a mental tally, really, of his accomplishments and failures.

Now was the best time for it. With things... not so much resolved as delayed regarding Matilda, Abby had taken the opportunity to head back home for a few days. The two of them hadn't really discussed where their relationship was going—another thing to add to the docket—but living together was not necessarily off the table. Nor on it. It was very confusing.

Regardless, Dan had his house to himself for a bit, and he had himself a good think. It had been a rough couple of months. Between Matilda's aggressive haranguing, Marcus' disappearance, and Anastasia's everything, he hadn't had much time to think about what he was actually doing. He wasn't looking to meditate, exactly. Dan wasn't a particularly spiritual person, and silently pondering the universe wasn't his thing, but he found that taking a few moments to simply reflect every now and then had a beneficial effect on his focus. It kept his eyes on the prize, as it were. It helped him define who he was, and where he wanted to go.

So where did he want to go?

The answer, unfortunately, did not come to him in some kind of mystically convenient epiphany. His goals were more or less the same as they'd always been. He wanted to do something impactful with his life, something important, and good. For someone whose existence had, for all intents and purposes, no visible footprint at all in his old world, the idea of making a measurable difference was intensely appealing. He just... didn't know exactly what that meant.

It didn't mean glory, Dan could acknowledge that much. He had never craved publicity nor fame of any kind. He had never envied the celebrities of his old world, and he didn't imagine that those of this one lived all that differently. His need was something internal, self-validation, independent of others. He supposed that it was better than the alternative. Needing to prove himself to himself was a far less toxic state of being than needing to prove himself to others. If only that need wasn't so irritatingly ambiguous in its direction.

Thankfully, he had plenty of time to figure it out. His whole life, really. He'd start with disaster relief, to get the lay of the land. His Academy class was the first, and most important step. The qualification he'd earn at the end of the course would allow him to volunteer to be on call just about anywhere across the country. His power, even the heavily nerfed version listed in government records, made him uniquely suitable for all kinds of rapid response situations. He'd be getting his first taste of that soon, if Tawny was to be believed.

Dan had been a lot less apprehensive about it than he'd expected. There wasn't a lot of feeling at all, really. It was just a thing that was probably going to happen. It would suck, but that was the way of things. Nothing he could do about it.

This thought, which had so briefly flicked through his mind, was abhorrently horrifying to him. It was like... he'd slowly come round to the callousness that seemed to define this parallel. Bad things happened, and the world moved on. That was not how he wanted to be. He'd seen the result of living like that: Marcus and Anastasia. One broken, isolated, and filled with regret, taking insane risks in the name of penitence. The other, actively malevolent, making a stranger squirm for her own amusement and calling it a test of character.

Dan still identified with his friends. He still felt a warm, buzzing joy at the sight of Abby's smile, his gut still churned with guilt at the thought of bringing trouble down on Connor's head. He hadn't met Freya's eyes since she'd spoken about her own upgrade. It hadn't even occurred to him at the time; was it real, or did he change her too? And would she even tell him if he had?

These things still affected him, he still felt. He was just so isolated from society, the way that he lived was so apart, that he'd grown apathetic to those outside his in-group. It had been a worrying revelation, and one without an immediate fix. But he had a decent enough idea.

Which led him to the Arboretum, an Austin mall. It was surprisingly similar to the one that he remembered from his own parallel, with an arboreal theme and wide, open spaces. Various shops peppered the spiraling stone path, a wide variety of unfamiliar names and services. People roamed to and fro, dozens of them, hundreds of them, of all shapes and sizes, literally and figuratively. He'd almost forgotten how mods could change a person's appearance. All his time had been spent around police officers, who generally modded themselves with Olympian physiques, but lacked the stylized personal flares that civilians often favored.

This was where Dan needed to be. He needed to meet some strangers, and interact with the people around him. He had a home here, it was time to meet the neighbors. And beyond anything else, he needed to get out of the damn house. He couldn't hole up there forever, as appealing as that sometimes felt.

So, Dan wandered. He let his feet guide him forward, eyes roaming across the sights, leaving his destination up to chance. The first thing to catch his eye was a startlingly familiar aesthetic, chosen as the backdrop of an upgrade center. Smooth grey panels against a creamy white wall. Simple wooden tables arrayed in rows, with products lined out on top of them. The walls were largely bare, with a few clean photographs displaying the end results of the upgrades on display. The only thing missing was a logo of an apple.

inteligensia, the sign proclaimed in blocky white text.

”Huh,” Dan remarked, bee-lining towards the entrance alongside half a dozen other people. The entrance was garnished by a pair of large glass windows, proudly showing off the tremendous number of customers milling about the place.

Dan entered on the heels of a teenager with skin as black as coal, dark red stripes running across its surface like circuitry and sporting a tall mohawk dyed the same shade of red. The young man ambled off to join a group of similar looking young men and women, a collection of teens that Dan was mentally dubbing 'Turbo-Goths'. They were not the only oddly dressed or shaped individuals; the store seemed to attract those more given to self-expression. Nor were the ages limited to the young. Dan saw at least a handful of people who were likely above their fifties. Or modded to look that way.

Hm. That... almost certainly was a thing that existed.

The Turbo-Goths themselves were gathered around a mod display labeled Rioja, symbolized by an overflowing wine glass. Each item in the store had its own pictograph logo. A catalogue next to the entrance listed the contents of each table, along with brief descriptions and compatibility issues. Though upgrades were obviously exclusive, each mod had further pictographs listing what products from which companies they could be safely paired with. Though the symbols were nothing more than gibberish to Dan, he found the stylized i symbolizing inteligensia to be refreshingly familiar.

Dan, recognizing that the whole point of this venture was to meet new people, strolled up to the group of teens and gave a cheerful wave. ”Hey fellas. What's this one do?” He gestured to the display for emphasis. Unlike other upgrade centers that Dan had passed by, this particular store used holographic displays quite similar to the one he'd seen on his APD tour. It was clearly a mark of great prestige, using the same kind of technology as the police.

He hadn't actually expected much of a response to his question. Teenagers, in his experience, were belligerent at the best of times, but he saw little reason not to make an effort. The teens were dressed like greasers from the fifties, all black leather and slicked back hair. Their body mods were varied in appearance, but all aligned with the same general theme. Dark pigments with red accents, horns, slitted pupils, blood-red lips and guy-liner.

Turbo-Goths.

Cheerful Turbo-Goths, much to Dan's surprise. The closest one to him glanced over with an excited grin, revealing sharpened canines. He was less visibly modified than his fellows, though his brow was peppered with half a dozen tiny horns, and his iris' were red. Generous amounts of what seemed to be mascara outlined his eyes. The young man's hand gestured to the holographic display, the spinning image of an overflowing wineglass flickering as his hand passed through it.

”It's Rioja!” he exclaimed with a voice completely at odds with his appearance. Slightly high-pitched, like puberty hadn't settled quite yet. and filled with childish enthusiasm. ”How've you not heard of this yet? Intel's gonna make a fortune!”

Dan was taken aback by the boy's—and upon closer inspection, this was a boy, not a young man—enthusiasm, but he managed to shrug guilelessly. ”I guess I don't watch the news all that much.”

”Pfft, it's been all over the net for months!” The kid blew out an incredulous breath and rolled his eyes. ”You a luddy?”