I was still staring at myself in the mirror when my burner phone beeped at me. Checking it, I saw a text from Glory that simply read “turn on the news”, so I quickly crossed to my room’s TV and did.
The George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to NYC was collapsing.
Quickly flipping channels, I skimmed the news: a traffic accident on the bridge had caused a tanker to overturn near one end, which then caught on fire. The fuel, spilling out everywhere, had melted several of the support cables and pylons, causing the east end of the bridge to tear free; and that violent action had ripped the west end free as well.
The bridge deck was now disconnected on both ends, hanging from cables that continued unraveling live on camera, while the deck itself swung wildly to and fro, stymieing all efforts at rescue. The announcer said that it had been bumper-to-bumper traffic across the eight lanes up top as well as the six lanes beneath, leaving over a thousand people currently in peril. There were at best mere minutes left before the deck and all the souls aboard plunged over 200 feet into the Hudson River below – presumably to their death.
Another text from Glory: “I can’t possibly get there in time – can you save them?”
I threw my mask back on and my new hoodie jacket, and astralled right there, retaking physical form immediately on a wide observation platform to one side of the river..
The chaos was even greater in person than on TV, and the screaming didn’t stop.
Another bridge cable snapped, making the whole 3500 foot long deck lurch again, as it verged on collapse. All my brain could come up with to save everyone is what I would do with powers that I didn’t have. I bet Kazadi with his telekinesis could have just grabbed the thing. I couldn’t even just go get Glory and bring her here to save the day, since Quantum powers don’t work on other Quantums, as we found out.
Then time was simply up. One more cable snapped, then they all started snapping, and the deck twisted and fell, heading for the river, hard.
Sometimes I don’t see what’s obvious until the critical moment.
I threw out a gout of thousands of soul-sparrows towards the bridge.
And the sparrows did as ordered, collecting every soul, one each. The unneeded sparrows rebounded to dive back inside me.
Of course, I was the only one who could see any of this. All everyone else saw was the horrific conclusion.
I commanded my soul-laden sparrows to come back to me with their cargo. Strangely, each soul wasn’t manifest as an astral form as when I caught souls myself, but as a bead of light on the breast of each dark sparrow-form. Nevertheless, I could see those glowing stars for what they really were: the souls of everyone from the bridge.
As I directed them, the sparrows spread out across the platform. Then I bade each sparrow to give bodies back to their carried souls.
All at once, the platform was filled with people. A few people near me who had been watching the catastrophe from here all along had seen me gesture and had dismissed me, until now. Now they looked at me with curiosity, fear, and respect.
One of them spoke to me, “Are you a Quantum?” he asked gingerly. I could see that he already knew exactly who I was, and I confirmed it for him: “I am the Arbiter of Life and Death”.
It took only moments more for the news helicopters and the rest to find us, and rather than stick around, I dove off the platform, astralling out before I hit the water, back to my room.
The TV was still on, and was showing the rescued people still in shock at their continued existence. Moments later the lower third chiron changed: “Arbiter rescues everyone!” it read.
Soon there were reporters on the ground making a beeline for the people who saw me, getting them to describe my gestures. Of course, they thought I somehow teleported the people to me, rather than killing them to get their souls and then bringing them back, but the upshot was the same – although seemingly reluctantly, they were crediting the Arbiter with the save, and even expressing gratitude.
Another text came in from Glory: “Good job!”
I laughed.
Of course I knew it was just a matter of time before I did something else that the public would find less palatable, so I shrugged off all the praise I was getting on TV. One of the more intelligent anchors – PBS, of course – was musing that in just a few days I had murdered dozens and saved thousands, and asked rhetorically what kind of hero or villain I was?
“You’ll know when I do.” I said to the TV, and was about to switch it off when another news bulletin broke in.
The Quantum Jack Boynton had just been shot and instantly killed in Arizona while walking to get a coffee. The unknown sniper got away.
I was certain I knew the codename of the person who had hired that sniper.
I boiled inside. Time to put an end to the killings of Quantums. If H had the info that I asked for.
It was time to find out. I left to meet the man only known to me as H.