It all began the day I died. The first time.

Look, I’m not a writer, but everyone’s been telling me that’s it’s important to go back and write it all down from the start, from my perspective. Hopefully, before this ends up in anyone’s hands, an actual writer with skill will have fixed all my mistakes.

It was an ordinary and boring Sunday afternoon. I had just moved out of the home I had shared with my ex Genevieve for close to two decades, into a cheap one-bedroom apartment not far away. Like everyone else, I had no idea how much life was about to change.

My actual name is Maxwell Grey, by the way, but I usually just went by Maxx. I had just turned fifty, and although my body was starting to feel older, my spirit certainly wasn’t. Maybe I’m one of those guys who never really grows up all the way – or maybe we’re all like that to some extent, I don’t know.

I made my living as an independent tech consultant – a fancy way of saying that I preferred to work for myself and my tech skills made it so that I could. But because I was better working in my business than on my business, I seemed to always earn enough to get by, and not a lot more.

To me, the greatest irony was that before it all went down, I had just started to take conscious and active control of my life. I had been dieting, successfully taking off the pounds the years had put on. I was pursuing finding a mate – although with little luck so far. I was even making plans to finally see if I could push my consultancy into the next gear, to gain a little more financial flexibility.

It was around noon that the alert went out. A rogue asteroid had come from out of the plane of the ecliptic from a direction no one had been watching. We all found out later what happened: the world powers couldn’t nuke it because it was too close and that would just spread newly irradiated debris and dust all over the globe. So they hastily retrofit an ICBM with the strongest explosive they could come up with – using a small quantity of antimatter requisitioned from a science lab, sent it up, and hoped for the best. By the time the alert went out, the asteroid had already been largely vaporized.

As I understand it, the movie “Extinction Event” gets most of the details right, except I saw a picture of the actual project leader, and he was no Russell Crowe.

Now I’m obsessing over whether or not I’m supposed to write the titles of movies in quotes, or underlined, or something else – no idea. Forget it – like I said before, I’m not a writer.

The first alert the world got was anticlimactic. I didn’t have the television on, but I was surfing the net when I saw the articles begin appearing in my feed, so I turned on the TV.

The emergency alert was saying that the planet had just avoided a massive meteor strike, that it was now successfully destroyed, and the main danger was past. They were advising everyone to take shelter within the next hour as the remaining debris would pepper much of North America. Although some of the remaining fragments were as large as a small couch, they reassured us that the chance of anyone actually being hit by any meteors was smaller than that of being struck by lightning. Nevertheless, they recommended that everyone take shelter until the rain of debris was over in a few hours.

Well, you know what happened next. All over America, people went outside to watch the sky for the coming meteor fall.

People are morons.

I, always one to take caution seriously, stayed in my apartment and watched it all on TV – not that I was seriously worried that if I went out I myself would be hit – I understood the chances were still slim to none – but why take the risk? I figured I was that much safer in my first floor apartment, with three other floors above me.

But the announcers were largely right. As pieces of the asteroid fell all over North America, there were very few calamities to report. Most landed in non-populated areas. A fair number of epic potholes were created. Some did land in some cities and towns, and a few did some significant property damage. A handful of people were killed, not by being hit with a meteor, but due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time – like a couple in Oregon who drove at 50 mph into an unexpectedly felled tree, or a guy in Tennessee living in a ramshackle house that collapsed in on itself when it got hit. But almost no one got directly struck by the debris raining down that day.

Except me.

What I experienced next was pure chaos. I’d only gone through something similar once before when I was much younger and lost control of the car I was driving. I was told it flipped end over end several times, spun, and went over the embankment to smack into a stone wall. Thanks to seat-belts I walked away from that crash without a scratch.

This time it wasn’t a car that was totaled, it was me.

Everything seemed to happen all at once, a crashing splintering sound as the chunk of space rock tore through all the material above to get to me. A brilliant flash and a terrible, wet, meat-like sound as it did. I remember the split second after that seemed to last a really long time, as the echoes faded and I glanced down, still in no pain, to see weirdly that my insides simply weren’t there anymore. It’s so strange to see nothing where a lot of you used to be.

My last thought as I faded was a final irony – that as an atheist I wouldn’t even get the pleasure of finding out I was right all along. Then deep inside my soul there was a shift, and I involuntarily surrendered to the irresistible grey that rushed in upon me.

Then something happened that I will never completely be able to put into words. When that wall of fog reached me and pervaded me, something like an energy or vibration remained, like a buzzing gnat that just doesn’t let you quite fall asleep. At the same time, it felt like an itch I needed to scratch, an interrogation of my soul that I wasn’t allowed to ignore. I was put to the test in that moment. It challenged who I was at my very core, and what I truly wanted. It called into question why I had been born, and where I had been going with my life. And above and beyond and through all of it, the implied query: was I truly ready to cease to be, or did I have anything worth living for?

Knowing who I am and what I’ve been through, the next part may make you laugh, dear reader. But all through my life to that moment I’ve been implacably opposed to the very idea of death. While others have spouted to me that nonsense about death being an important part of life, I rejected it. When they asked who in their right mind would want to live forever, I always firmly said, “Me.” Of all the injustices of the world, death I knew to be the worst – because while everything else could make you hurt and suffer, only death could destroy the last shreds of hope.

Thus, in that moment I raged against death, against the hopelessness and utter powerlessness that the fact of death represents in this world. I raged against all of it, all the darkness, all the pain, against the loss I was experiencing and the small number that would lose a part of themselves when they discovered my demise. But most of all I raged against this beastly world that had the audacity to obliviate the universe that I was as a person, billions of times over. My whole soul rejected death and its hold on me in the name of all sentient life.

And the moment ended. The vibration or energy met with my refusal, melted into it somehow, into me.

And my body, nearly torn in half by the impact, died.

I know that because I was standing there looking at it.

It was pretty gross, but I have to admit the first thought on my mind at that time was, “Crap, I was wrong, there is an afterlife, and I might be in big trouble…”

For a minute I waited for a tunnel of light to show me the way, or an angel (or worse) to come take possession of me. Nothing happened.

I’m not a patient sort at the best of times, and I wasn’t then. First I glanced around my living room, looked up through the hole in the ceiling torn by the meteor, peered down through my couch at the hole going into the basement. Looked around the destroyed room. I tried not to look too closely at my body itself, or the bits of me decorating all four walls. The place was a mess.

I checked out the clock in the entertainment center, which was still working. That’s how I know that I waited ten more minutes, but nothing changed. At all.

What the…?

I reached for a candy from my candy dish next to the couch, absentmindedly, as I considered what to do next. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when my fingers passed right through it, but it certainly got my attention.

I tried to touch the arm of the couch, and the side table – but my fingers contacted nothing. A part of my brain wondered how it was I could be standing on the floor if I couldn’t make contact with matter, but I avoided pulling at that thread for now, for fear I would start falling towards the center of the earth if I did.

Instead, I refocused on the candy dish. I’d heard many stories of ghosts and poltergeists causing a ruckus by interacting with the world in limited ways – maybe if I tried hard, I could at least lift one candy, or nudge it or something.

So I leaned over the dish and brought my forefinger and thumb together on the topmost piece. Just before contact, I willed as hard as I could for my fingers to grasp it, and in that moment three things happened simultaneously:

I picked up the piece of candy.

My corpse and associated biomatter all around the room simply vanished.

And I was suddenly aware of what I had been missing since my “death”, as all the ordinary aches and pains of having a 50-year-old body suddenly returned.

I stood there, mouth agape, when the pounding at my door started, startling me out of my brain freeze. I opened the door and greeted my visitors, getting the next shock:

They shone.

It was our local fire department. Someone must have called them after the impact; they had arrived to check on me. I think I said something intelligent, like, “Buh-wha-huh?”. They tried to comfort me, brought me outside to the arriving emergency vehicles, and started to check me for injuries.

Everyone shone. Well, not shone exactly – it was like underneath their skin, I could see something in them. Something that looked like them also, almost as if each person was housing their own twin inside, like some kind of living Yo Dawg meme: Yo Dawg, I heard you liked seeing people, so I put people in your people so you could see people while you were seeing people.

Strangely enough – if anything could be considered strange at this point – the double exposure effect I was seeing on everyone was not disorienting, as if I was seeing the outside people with one sense, and the inside people with another, which might be exactly what was going on for all I knew.

Struck by a sudden thought, I held out my hands in front of me and regarded them.

I, too, had the same doubling effect.

At that point most of my brain shut down; I was overloaded. What happened next was a blur; I think they investigated the meteor’s trail through the building, made sure there was no remaining danger, threw some quick patches in place on ceilings and floors, and let us go back to our apartments. Although oblivious to it in the moment, I found out later that no one (else) in the complex had been injured by this event. I was escorted to my bed to lie down; people left; and exhausted, I slept.

I think the first girl I ever loved was in fourth grade. There had been another girl when I was in second grade, but she didn’t really notice me, and what I had felt for that one was more intrigue than affection. But the fourth grader – her name was Karla – we connected.

This was back when I lived in Acworth, a tiny rural town so small it had a two room schoolhouse for the first five grades – grades one through three in one room with one teacher, grades four through five in the other room. My family had moved to Acworth between grades three and four, so I knew no one. The teacher was a nice enough man, Mr. Nelsen – he taught us, read stories to us, and played chess with me while the other kids were at recess.

The desk setup was a little unusual – each desk was double wide and sat two students at it, with a single wide tray underneath for books and such. And beautiful Karla was my deskmate.

I was smitten with her – don’t tell me ten-year-olds don’t have those feelings, I sure did – but I had no idea how to show it. I wasn’t going to pull her hair or push her down the way young boys do to girls in stories. And at that age I was ill-equipped to profess anything to her – and I’m sure she was ill-equipped to process anything I would have chosen to share.

Honestly, I’m not sure forty years later I’ve learned all that much about how to tell the opposite sex you like her, but at least back then I had a good excuse.

So instead of anything dramatic, I made it a point to be utterly considerate towards her. I made a point of making sure I treated my deskmate with every ounce of respect and deference I could muster. I kept my school things in the tray underneath scooched way over to my side to not interfere with her space. I behaved courteously towards Karla at all times. At one point she even declared that I must be the nicest boy there – and my heart did swell.

Who knows what could have happened, but it didn’t. At the end of fourth grade, her family moved, and I never saw her again. That was my second real loss.

The first, in case you’re wondering, was in second grade, back in Jaffrey, when we were waiting for the bus. It was a summery day, and the girl I mentioned before – I don’t recall her name – was doing cartwheels, and everyone was watching. Either because they didn’t like that I was watching or because it was just an easy way to show off, a couple of the older, bigger boys decided to push me around and pummel me. I was mortified, but didn’t show it – still, this first bullying experience made me feel like a little piece of me had been killed. I didn’t like it.

Of course, I would continue to face bullies wherever I went, which really only stopped around 11^th grade, when even the bullies began to realize that they were about to have to face the real world. But until then, I tried to mostly stay out of their way – and I never showed fear or pain on my face. Most of the time I would try to laugh it off, like I thought they were including me in on the joke, and it was funny. When that wasn’t possible I withdrew – first mentally, then when I could, physically.

However, I fit the profile of victim too well to escape that kind of attention. Not only was I shy, even worse I was whip-smart, and bullies hate it when you’re much smarter than they are. At least until late high school, when being my friend meant possibly having a decent lab partner.

Fifth grade came and went without much fanfare, but sixth grade meant getting bussed to Alstead and the junior high there – it also meant kids from the surrounding towns – not just Acworth – would be there, expanding the class size dramatically. If the Acworth school had been a laid-back and experimental one, with a whiff of the hippie mentality still strong, the Alstead junior high was far more cosmopolitan – at least to me.

The headache I expected when I awoke up did not materialize, but though my brain was not in pain, it wasn’t business as usual either. I woke up thoughts racing, mind still blown, yet being in my own bed and alone in the dim quiet gave me some focus, which helped.

I swung my legs down and sat up, took a couple of deep breaths, and started talking to myself as I often did when alone – especially when unsure or overwhelmed, which I was, in spades.

“OK, Maxx, forget about all the craziness. Shower & dress, don’t worry about anything else just yet. Do the normal routine first, worry about the other stuff later.”

Which is what I did.

Bathroom routine: Blood pressure and anxiety pills. Two sets of eyedrops for glaucoma. Brush hair. Jump in shower. Take far too long because having long hair is a pain, especially in the shower. Jump out. Brush hair again. Dress. Skip breakfast – on diet – but grab a single flavored oreo to curb cravings. Grab bottle of water from fridge.

It’s just occurred to me that I’ve assumed that everyone reading this book will know exactly what I look like, as “famous” as I am (or should I say, “infamous”, lol), but I probably shouldn’t make that assumption, especially for how I looked back then – so here goes:

6’1″. 250 pounds and dropping 2 every week. Brown eyes under distinctive thick brows and behind glasses. Long brown hair, flowing freely. Beard. Quiet, mysterious, intense – unless you were one of my few friends, in which case make that verbose, cerebral, and intense. A little clumsy. Somewhat hearing impaired, due to tinnitus. (Hearing aids were the next step, I had started shopping them.) Often wearing slacks and a polo shirt. A dimple on my right cheek under my beard when I smiled.

My morning routine finished with, I could avoid dealing with the reality of the impossible no longer. The fact that it really happened and wasn’t a dream or hallucination was evident from the punctured couch and the new floor and ceiling patch jobs.

No, it had really happened.

I sat down on my bed to think this through – still talking to myself. “Alright, I had an out of body experience yesterday. After that, I could see something inside of people, including,” I glanced down to confirm my hands were still doubled like yesterday, “yeah, including myself. Can I make myself have another out of body experience? Nothing to do but try.” I lack back on my bed, took a few breaths, and willed myself out.

Once again I was standing, looking down at myself laying on the bed.

I reached towards the bed, and again my hand passed right through it as if the bed – or I – wasn’t really there. On inspiration I regarded my hands, which were no longer doubled.

“So I guess this is my astral self or something?” I asked myself. “And maybe the reason I see people doubled up is I am seeing their astral selves inhabiting their bodies?

Glancing back at my slumbering body I grinned and said, “Wait there.” and walked out through the main room up to the apartment door. Just to double-check, I reached for the knob, but of course, no dice. So I took a breath and stepped through the door.

Found myself in the hallway beyond. “OK, let’s go for a walk” I said, walked to the end of the hall, went down a half flight of stairs, and walked through the external door to the outside. I was still uncertain as to how I was able to use stairs but walk right through doors, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

As I exited the building I realized that it was still only barely Spring and I had forgotten to throw on a coat – but then I noticed that despite the snow and ice, I was not uncomfortable and didn’t feel cold – a perk of the astral form, I guessed.

I walked down the street, heading to the main drag in Walpole with all the restaurants and stores. Traffic was moderate on Route 12, which gave me a terrifying idea.

I stepped in front of a moving car, my heart racing at my boldness.

The driver didn’t react, and both he and his car passed right through me.

I kept walking, and got to the main grocery store with many people coming and going – all of course doubled. I waved my arms in front of them and shouted, but got no reaction.

After a while it got boring so I sat down on a nearby bench, and wondered why I could sit on this bench at all. Or walk on floors, or take stairs. I stood up again, and reached down. My hand passed through the surface of the parking lot. That I was standing on. Argh, I simply didn’t get it!

I sat back down on the bench and leaned back, tried to think about it logically.

“OK, I know I can’t touch anything with my hands, and a car just drove through my whole body. No part of me is cold though it must be at least freezing now. And yet being able to walk on stuff instead of passing through it… wait a minute, what if gravity doesn’t affect astral things? But I don’t feel weightless. But maybe astral beings don’t even feel the lack of weight?” I shrugged, starting to feel a little frustrated – then had a crazy thought: “Since as far as I can figure, the material world doesn’t exist for me, what would happen if I tried to walk up some stairs that weren’t there?”

I stood up again. I pretended I was in front of an invisible staircase right there in the parking lot. I put my astral foot where I imagined the first tread to be, and stepped up onto it. And it worked.

I went up a few more “invisible steps” and stopped at the pretend landing I was imagining. I was ten feet off the ground, standing in the middle of the parking lot, with nothing but air underneath me, with shoppers utterly unaware all around me, going about their business. It was a very amusing scene to me, and I laughed.

I swapped my imagination around, and pretended I was hovering in the air with nothing underneath me at all, invisible or not – would I fall?

Nope.

I had a sudden insight. I looked upward, punched my fist towards the sky, and flew up into it, just like the superhero that in that moment I felt like I might be!

Wherever I thought myself, I went, my astral body completely under my control. I swooped and dove, rose and banked. My adrenaline – at least my astral adrenaline – was pumping. I couldn’t believe it.

But this was real. My only regret is that no one would be able to see me, be able to share my newfound joy.

I dove back down to the ground, hovering slightly above it. “How fast can an astral body go?” I wondered. I aimed a mile or so down the road, and got there in mere seconds. “Faster.” I said, and shot back to my starting point even faster.

“OK,” I said grinning from ear to ear, “This one’s for all the marbles. Let’s see just how damn fast I can go.” I aimed back down the street again and WILLED myself to the maximum velocity I could achieve. After all, it wasn’t like I had to worry about hitting anything!

Reality turned into an insane blur for two seconds, then I stopped.

I was in outer space with nothing but unknown stars around me, and neither the Earth nor the Sun were anywhere in sight.

In my instant panic, my first instinct was to hold my breath and scan around everywhere for somewhere – anywhere! – safe I could go. But after a minute or so of doing that I noticed that there was no increasing need to take the next breath, that I still did not feel weightless, and that I wasn’t freezing solid in the vacuum of space.

So I pushed my panic down and began to relax a fraction. Without thinking I took a breath as I relaxed, but nothing came of it. Seemingly my astral experiences were mostly driven by familiarity – I was used to breathing, so my astral self continued to mimic that behavior, even though I was in deep space with zero atmosphere. That’s also probably why I didn’t feel weightless – I was used to feeling weight as “normal”, so my astral self kept right on doing that. Which also finally explained how I could walk on floors and sit on benches despite not being able to touch them: my astral self had to have been only mimicking walking on floors and stairs, driven by my expectation of being able to.

But as comforting as it was to know that even in deep space I seemed to be astrally invulnerable, the larger truth was anxiety spiking: I was lost, more than any human had ever been before.

I had left my planet, solar system, and for all I knew even my home galaxy, and was now somewhere unknown in the universe with no way to find my way back.

The fact that I wasn’t in any danger was a very good thing, but I did not want to live as a disembodied spirit floating forever in the void. That idea quite frankly terrified me.

So I calmed myself again and examined the situation rationally. “Either I have a way back, or I don’t. I may as well assume for the moment that I do have a way to get back and try to figure out what that is.”

I paused try to think of something, anything. “Maybe if I try to reach out to my physical body, I can sense the way back to it – worth a shot, right?” I turned the idea over in my head, it seemed worth trying, and in that moment I couldn’t think of a better one.

So I tried to focus on my physical self. I tried to reach my senses out to it, tried scanning in all directions, astrally turning myself to look – but I accomplished nothing. I growled low, frustrated. This time I focused all my will and reached hard for my body.

Immediately I was dying, asphyxiating, freezing, decompressing, flailing, and soundlessly screaming. That was the second time I died and it was quite a bit more than unpleasant.

I had called my body to me.

As I regained my equilibrium I found myself back in my astral form, with my vacuum-killed body floating nearby. So much for that idea.

I moved a little bit away from my corpse – seeing myself like that was not good for my mood – and tried to come up with a Plan B. And continued to fail at exactly that.

I decided to take a break and see what it would be like to explore space. Everywhere I looked I saw countless stars and not much else, so I picked one at random and flew toward it, increasing speed as I went, though carefully. I almost went through and past it, but slammed on the brakes in time to see a rather bright bluish-white star fill most of my field of vision.

The view was amazing.

On another whim I dove in toward the star, and plunged inside it – no ill effect of course. Whatever sense I was using to astrally “see” was apparently superior to vision, because my sight adjusted and instead of seeing nothing but brilliant blinding light I saw textures and energy flows inside the heart of the star itself.

I surfaced out from the star and gazed outward, looking for any possible planets, but I knew before I started that seeing a planet at that distance was probably going to be impossible, and it was.

The problem with space it that it’s really big, vastly more than we humans can even conceive. Even if this star had planets and I knew which direction to look, I would almost certainly see nothing without a powerful telescope. I tried making my sight magnify briefly, but nothing happened – apparently that was not an option for astral sight.

So I picked out another star and flew to it. My skill at adjusting my speed seemed to increase. I spent some time visiting several stars in this way, touring a tiny slice of the cosmos. I was still not ready to face the big question of how – or if – I was going to get back home.

Although there was no way to know just how far I travelled in between these stars, I remembered that the distance from the Sun to the Earth took light about 8 minutes to travel. The distance between the stars was usually measured in light-years – one light-year being the distance light travels in a year – and as I recalled, the closest star to the Sun was at least three or four light-years away.

I was travelling between stars within minutes.

Astral travel apparently didn’t have to follow the rule about not going faster than the speed of light. Which also meant that my first burst of speed that took me away from the earth could have landed me absolutely anywhere in the universe.

I spent a while more zooming around the universe, gaining speed all the while – astral travel seemed to have no upper limit. It got so fast I was crossing the distances between stars in seconds.

I was pretty sure that any star I could see was probably within whatever galaxy I happened to be in, so for my next trip, I picked out a faint smudge of light. Smudges, as opposed to dots, wouldn’t be stars, they would be nebulae, clusters, or hopefully distant galaxies. I was no astronomer, but I thought that nebulae and star clusters would be larger smears, and the smudge I had picked I thought had that familiar galaxy silhouette.

Another fact I remembered is that while the stars within a galaxy could be 80,000 light years apart, galaxies themselves were vastly more distant then that. In other words, I wanted to push this astral speed even higher.

I focused on that smudge and projected myself at it.

And arrived above that galaxy in the next instant. Without crossing the intervening space.

With all my other traversals, I was always aware of crossing the intervening space, no matter how short the trip was, even as a mad blur. But this time I did not – I went from one place to another instantly. My astral self could teleport.

Score another one for astral travel!

Then I got excited – because in stories involving teleportation, a mental image of the desired destination was all that was usually required, the more familiar the better.

So I closed my astral eyes, and took some time to imagine every detail about my bedroom. And tried to project myself there.

When I opened my eyes I saw that I had succeeded.

I immediately reached down to pick up a back-scratcher I keep next to the bed, and pushed myself hard to actually make contact – and I was instantly back in my actual body – alive, thank you very much.

Checking the clock I saw I had spent the entire day roaming the cosmos, and I felt like it, so I tossed off my clothes and dropped into bed. I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

My last thought before I slumbered was: “I wonder what tomorrow will bring!”

I’ve always been fascinated with heroic stories – especially superheroic ones. When the trend towards superhero TV shows and films started, I saw them all – well all the ones that were inspiring and not downers. And I’ve wondered what superpower I would pick if I could have one, and come up with a lot of answers, although ironically not the one I actually wound up with.

I guess I’ve always felt a desire for power. Not mere political power, or financial power – true power, with which one could never be unjustly punished, and with which one could punish those who escaped their just deserts. To protect the innocent and the righteous from the wicked and the predatory.

But not just that. All through my life I’ve seen time and time again people making idiotic decisions, or barely even trying at all. These people cause themselves and everyone around them to suffer from their poor decision making, especially en masse, when the sad truth is both they and their accidental victims deserve to find happiness and well-being too – if only someone could and would make them do things right.

That’s what true power is – the ability to make sure that things are done right, no matter who doesn’t want to.

Not having true power, and being forced to endure witnessing those with power fail to use it properly for the benefit of all, that was one of my greatest torments. Watching humanity’s seemingly unstoppable march of stupidity, all the while knowing precisely what ought to be done. It was unbearable, like watching a 50 vehicle pile-up in slomo, body parts flying, and knowing that it could have been prevented if only people weren’t such knobs. And every day brought a new disaster, with a new toll in human suffering and death.

It was torture, to have the answers, but no way to put those answers into action. So instead I had a front row seat to the endless cycle of human self-sabotage and misery.

So I coped by inventing fictional powers that could help me fix it, and imagining how I would go about doing that. Go about addressing climate change, regardless of climate deniers. Go about bringing fairness back into economics, forcing the 1% to give much more back to the hard-working needy. Go about decriminalizing (though still regulating) all behavior between consenting adults – LGBT, drugs, sex-work, polyamory and more. Go about putting corporations and conglomerates on a short leash, so that their profits would always come second to the well-being of humans. And so much more.

I think at the center of my torment lay my empathy. After all, at the heart of most misanthropes you will find someone let down by humanity one too many times, someone that needed humanity to be better. Reality was brutal enough without adding humanity’s boundless capacity for thoughtless choices and casual cruelty. Knowing what humanity could be, the choices it actually made tortured me.

I’ve always been a realist, a rationalist, and a pragmatist – but I wasn’t born that way. I was born with moderately high intelligence and too much compassion for my own good. What catalyzed my intellect was the crucible of my parents’ abuse.

Growing up, my family was always poor and financially struggling. Not food-stamp poor, but not far from it either. My dad was always under a lot of pressure, and he didn’t start out a fan of mine to begin with. And as I said, I was smart, smart enough to know when things weren’t fair – and I was neither OK nor quiet about it.

So I got beaten down. And next time, I would stand up again – and get beaten down again. I couldn’t just pretend that two plus two was five, pretend that everything was fine – so I kept standing up, and kept getting beaten down.

People deal with such things in different ways. I dealt with it by becoming mentally independent at a young age, cultivating and owning my defiance as my own victory – for so long as I would not be broken, I could not be defeated, only bludgeoned.

But being all alone like that, relying on no one else for one’s sense of right and wrong and truth – that’s a lot of responsibility to take on as a child to get things right – and getting things right was always important to me – compassion and empathy demanded that if I was going to stick to my guns, I had to be right about what I was standing for.

So I had to figure out for myself the best way to be right the most often. And I did.

Which only left me lacking a way to do something about all the people who were far from right.

And so I fantasized about superpowers. Until I actually got one.

I didn’t get out of bed right away when I awoke the next morning. Visions of space still danced in my head. It was all happening so fast, I decided right then to re-embrace the normality of my life before the meteorites fell. I figured it might be a good idea to just put a pause on all this astral power stuff and go back to regular life for a week. After a week of normalcy, then I’d come back to mess with the astral stuff some more.

Even in the moment a part of me had doubts about the possibility of making it a week, but I was determined to give it a shot. So I returned to “normal” life with gusto. I cleaned up the apartment a little, followed up with some clients and their IT needs, got on Facebook to chat with family and friends about ordinary stuff, played some games on my computer, and watched some of the TV shows I had waiting. Had a light lunch of a hot dog, a bowl of cereal for dinner, a few small chosen snacks in between (single oreos, only 70 calories each) and logged it all on my food diary app so I could stay on track to continue to lose weight. Spent the night watching YouTube videos – some of videos of other meteorite impacts – and got in bed around 11pm.

One day down, six to go.

Getting up on Wednesday, there was one thing I tried very hard to not think about, but which kept creeping back into my mind. I don’t know if you’ve picked up on it yet, dear reader, but I’d been avoiding looking too closely at one particular truth of my recent extraordinary experiences.

Around noon I could ignore it no longer, so I decided to face it the best way I knew how – by running an experiment. I took a quick trip to the local CVS store to get what I would need, and brought it home.

I sat on my bed, once again. Put the monitor over my index finger, and the beep-beep-beep started. The screen showed my pulse as 88 beats/minute. I took a breath and again left my body, retaking my astral form.

Well, I had made one day of normalcy.

Standing there outside my body, I watched the monitor fail to count any more heartbeats, warnings flashing.

That settled it. I wasn’t just taking my astral form while leaving my body to snooze in the meanwhile, like in the the stories. No, my truth was grimmer: apparently the way I took astral form was to will my own death first.

Every time I left my body, I left it a corpse.

That was what I kind of had guessed given my experiences so far, but not wanted to face. It was a somber realization.

Instead of trying to pick something up to re-incorporate this time, I tried simply pushing myself back into physicality, kind of like I did accidentally in deep space. It worked, the corpse on the bed vanishing the same moment I became physical again. I put the heart monitor back on my finger and it resumed it’s beeping as it monitored my newly living heart.

I repeated the test twice more, with the same results.

I can’t tell you why, and maybe I don’t have to, but the idea of having astral powers seemed a lot more whimsical before I knew that every astral journey began with me willing myself to death first.

Back in my body again, I took a deep breath, telling myself one of the mantras I had picked up from a delightful Harry Potter fanfic called “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” – which explored the idea of what if Harry had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

The mantra was: “What’s true is already so, owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.”

So I did.

After that, I got back on the normalcy wagon, put my new powers back down, and tried not to think about them for a bit. My abilities had lost a little bit of their fun factor, so I went back to taking a little break.

And this time I would have made a week without using them, I really think, if I hadn’t been murdered first.

The rest of Wednesday went quietly. Thursday started off the same way. Morning routine, some online work, then I was off to visit a client whose email had stopped working up in Claremont. After fixing the guy’s server settings, all was good.

Then I noticed that a message left by someone with a tech emergency, someone named Alice, so I called her right back. Seems her laptop would no longer boot and she absolutely had to rescue a PowerPoint presentation for work from it immediately. I gave her my rates for emergency work, which she said she would happily pay even with no guarantees that the file was recoverable, so I got her address and headed there.

She lived in Lempster, in a backwoods rural area – pretty common for this part of New Hampshire, with almost as many dirt roads as paved once you get off the main routes. But Google Maps is king and I soon found myself pulling up to her house at the end of a rough, almost class 6, road.

I grabbed my laptop bag with all my tools, headed onto the porch, rang the bell, and also knocked for good measure. A few moment later a frazzled and frumpy-looking woman in perhaps her late 50’s opened the door for me. “Thanks for coming; it’s right this way” she said, obviously stressed.

Alice took me though the quaint rustic house to her den. A laptop sat on the desk, next to a desktop PC. “If you can rescue my presentation, we can put it on my other computer, right?” “Yep”, I replied.

I sat down at the laptop, tried booting it, but of course it did not. “Could be power, or maybe the motherboard.” I said, “but let’s pop the hard drive out of the system and see if we can pull your file off of it.”

I got out my toolkit, and flipped the laptop over.

Then a bang and the lights went out, as if someone had shot me in the back of the head.

Suddenly and unexpectedly in my astral form I saw my body slumped on the desk with most of my head blown off and splattered all over the desk and wall. Alice literally held the smoking gun. Her body language and expression no longer played the part of frazzled middle manager; instead she moved with precision and focus as she began disassembling the handgun, exiting the room quickly. I followed astrally and invisibly behind her.

She was met by a man I hadn’t yet seen, tall, thin and balding. “Is it done?”, he asked. “Yes.” she replied. “Good,” he continued, “we’ve got another contract from the outfit, target’s in Florida, let’s go.”

I hesitated, unsure of what I should do next; then thought “Screw it” and re-incorporated – I can only assume the mess in the den disappeared at the same time.

To say “Alice” and her friend were shocked would be an understatement.

“Now, what are- ” I began to say when the man whipped out his own handgun and shot twice me in the gut – I instinctively ditched my body again rather than stay and suffer the pain.

Again astral and invisible, I watched the thin man spin toward “Alice” and intensely say, “I thought you said you got him, Joyce?!”

She replied, “Kev, I splattered his brains all over the study!”

The man apparently named Kevin retorted, “What, is this his twin then?”

Joyce ran back to the study. “I don’t get it! I blew his head clean off!”

Kevin followed her. “Then where’s the body?”

While they took a moment to ponder that, I positioned myself next to Kevin, and re-incorporated as I plucked his weapon from his holster, stepping back from them.

They both looked at me with disbelief, eyes wide open.

I felt cocky and snarky – my prerogative I thought, since they had just killed me twice in as many minutes. “Don’t worry,” I smiled, “it takes some getting used to.”

Apparently Kev was more of an action not words kind of guy; he lunged to tackle me. As he and I struggled over the gun, Joyce ran past us, and didn’t come back.

Kev was a professional, that much was sure, but he was also facing something he didn’t understand, which made him hesitate, doubt, fear. He started to turn the gun towards me while simultaneously trying to prevent me from pulling the trigger in the meanwhile, as it still pointed into his midsection.

I locked eyes with him as he bent the gun more and more towards me, and I became quite furious. Perhaps because I knew that even if he succeeded it would be but a momentary annoyance for me, I was increasingly outraged at the pair of them. But in the end his strength and skill won out, and the gun started to come up in my direction.

I looked deeper inside him, at his own astral self, and if looks could kill, he would have died.

Which was how I learned that my look could kill. I simply felt my will reach forth and push this man’s astral self – his soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it – right out of his body.

And freed of his body, it evaporated into nothing. Kevin was dead.

I heard a car start outside, and the sound of tires spinning in dirt. I ran out the front door in time to see a small Honda zoom back down the rough road, away from me, Joyce at the wheel.

So I popped out of my body, easily overtook her, and re-incorporated down the road in her path, blocking her way.

She gunned the engine and accelerated.

Before the impact, I left my body behind and with another flex of my will, separated her soul from her body. But this time I tried to hold on to her astral self, to will her not to melt like Kevin had. It worked.

Her car, with it’s suddenly lifeless driver, spun off the road into a tree.

Joyce’s astral self looked at me and saw my own astral being. She screamed.

I waited. Eventually she stopped.

“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered.

“I think I already did, the question now is can I put you back the same way I put myself back? So here’s what we’re going to do. I am going to try to put you back. If I succeed you stay and answer my questions or I’m really going to get upset with you. You will not like that. Got it?”

She nodded, the professional killer now all meek, the fight gone from her.

So I tried it. I pushed her astral form like I had pushed my own, hoping I could re-create her body and put her in it as I’d done to myself several times.

It was surprisingly anticlimactic and easy. Joyce stood alive again, in her body, now again unable to see me until I too re-took corporeal form a moment later.

“Huh.” I said.

Joyce kept her gaze cast down, not meeting my eyes, and she awaited my next demand of her. “Wait here a moment.” I said, and I jogged over to the crashed car to verify that her body was no longer in it – and it wasn’t.

I returned to Joyce, the professional hitwoman, still contritely waiting.

“So, tell me what this is all about. Leave out no important details.” I ordered.

Joyce took a deep breath and, still not meeting my eyes, began.

“First you should know that in my business information is compartmentalized, in case people get compromised, like this. I only mention that so you might believe I am not holding out on you, that I am telling you everything I know.

“We got this contract only yesterday – ”

“What time?” I interrupted. “In Eastern Time?”

She calculated in her head, “Would have been a little after noon, EST.”

I found that significant. “Go on.” I told her.

She continued, “Me and my partner, Kevin – he’s dead now, isn’t he? – we were in L.A. when we got the call. The caller called himself “Archangel”, said there would be 100k in it for us to, well you know…”

“Kill me?” I offered. “Easier said then done.”

“Obviously,” she replied, devoid of snark, “We were given your name and location. As usual, half of the money was waiting for us in a bus locker in Boston, the other to be given upon completion. We figured that the simplest way would be to lure you to a house in the woods with a job offer, so we did. The rest you know.” She added in a low voice, “Will you be killing me?”

“First things first,” I replied, “what about this new target in Florida?”

“All I know about it is what Kev said. Maybe he took a note, I don’t know. The job must have come in while I was with you.”

“OK, next question, where’s the 50k?”

“In the trunk.” She gestured to the crashed car.

“So you are probably wondering what I’m going to do with you.” I teased, not feeling entirely charitable towards my would-be killer. She waited, eyes still downcast.

“I’ve decided to put you out of your misery quickly.” I said. She nodded, silent tears falling down her face.

“- by that I mean I’m telling you now I am not going to kill you, I am going to let you go.” She looked surprised, her eyes coming up to briefly meet mine and fall back down. “With conditions.” I emphasized.

Something like a glimmer of hope appeared in her expression, and she nodded quickly.

“One: you no longer kill or harm people. If we cross paths again and I have found out that you have hurt anyone not in self-defense, I will end you. Got it?” She nodded quickly again.

“Two: you report in as you would usually after a mission, and tell them everything that happened here. Make them, whoever it is, aware that killing me just makes me angry. Tell them to leave me the hell alone or face my wrath. Got it?” More nodding. “Then leave, you’re walking.” I pointed down the road. She looked at me briefly to make sure it was OK, then broke into a light run down the dirt road. I watched her depart for a few minutes, until she went out of sight.

So, I thought, someone decided they wanted me dead yesterday, right after I ran my experiment. Yet they didn’t know enough that sending assassins would be futile. How interesting.

I astralled back to the house and went through Kevin’s pockets, and as I expected, didn’t find much. No ID. An obvious burner phone that I couldn’t unlock. Car keys, which I pocketed. No note written to himself. Kev was a dead end. The grisly pun made me chuckle. I wondered if that was a bad sign.

Astralling to the car, I unlocked it and popped the trunk. A silver attache case was inside. It was not locked and it contained a lot of cash, quite possibly $50,000. As the intended target, I had no problem keeping it.

I gave the rest of the car a quick once over, but nothing else of significance was inside. I took the case, got in my car, and drove home. Thursday had been more exciting than I had expected.

On Friday I would find out that I wasn’t alone.

I’ve always led a lonely existence. Not directly by choice, of course – though you might have a point if you said it was indirectly by choice.

Around the time my partnership with Genevieve took its final breath, I discovered the Myers-Briggs personality profile – and I know that such profiles aren’t absolutely accurate and can only take you so far. But when I took the test and found out I was an INTJ type personality, and read about what that meant and the writings of other INTJ’s, I was flabbergasted.

That was me.

INTJ’s are one of the rarer types, at only one to two percent of the population. We are described as analytical and decisive, and supremely confident in what we have mastered. The type also partakes of both idealism and cynicism: idealistic about what is possible, but cynical about what people usually do.

Social authority and traditions are pointless to the cerebral INTJ’s, since we see everything as open to investigation and re-appraisal as needed, nothing sacred. Social conventions particularly often get ignored by this type, we value logic and reason above all – not that we don’t have passion and empathy, we simply see reason as the best or only tool to accomplish the goals our emotions prioritize.

Long story short, INTJ’s are introverted iconoclasts, frequently spending most of their time alone, and quite happy to do so.

In that, I was very different from most INTJ’s. I spent much time in isolation, not due to preference, but as punishment I felt for daring to embrace independence, reason, and reality.

Having grown up rejecting both outside influence on shaping me and cultural pressures to conform, I instead built who I came to be largely intentionally, a culture of one.

Which meant that I was part of no other cultural ingroup. Which meant isolation.

That could have worked out fine, except unlike many INTJ’s, I was not happy alone.

I didn’t understand why that might be until my 49^th year. My mother, like most of my siblings, lived not far away, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to visit her, sometimes to lunch between IT jobs, sometimes as an IT job – fixing her tech.

She had me when she was quite young – 17 or 18 when I was born I, I think – back in the late 60’s. And what culture had told her was that when you have a male infant, it’s important to not hold him too much or show too much affection in those early formative months and years – so that he can grow up to be strong and independent.

You, dear reader, can imagine how that played out in forming my personality and needs.

My mother of course sees the error in that approach now. It torments her when she thinks of how that affected my life – so I try to not bring it up. Everyone makes mistakes, all we can ask of good people is to own theirs, and she has. There is no reason for her to suffer further.

Nevertheless, my crushing loneliness made perfect sense to me in the context of that upbringing.

In fact, the year before everything changed was the first time in my life I was truly engaged with and grappling my deeper emotional needs. And I discovered I needed to be not alone in two specific ways.

My intellectual side was unfulfilled merely coming up with plans and ideas and understandings – to truly mean something I had to share them with someone who appreciated what I had done.

But even worse, the only thing which really kept loneliness at bay is the experience of touch with someone I’m in love with.

I don’t mean sex, not at all. I mean holding hands. I mean being physically close to each other in public. I mean embracing and kissing. I mean cuddling on the couch while conversing or watching TV.

I mean emotional intimacy expressed through touch.

You are permitted to laugh, given that it’s the Arbiter revealing this. It’s tragic, of course. The juxtaposition is also funny.

Anyways, as part of my Maxx Grey 2.0 campaign three-quarters through my 49^th year (nine months before the meteorites), I tried online dating and signed up with fourteen apps and websites – when I do something, I do give it my all!

The first pass was a pretty severe disaster – few prospects even bothered to respond to my inquiries. I met only three people.

One, a woman named Claire, had energy that felt like it complemented mine – but then told me her life was too busy after all to get to know anyone else at that point – perhaps in a few months we could try again.

Another, Denise, I fell hard for. A sweet, quiet, and petite woman, I adored everything about her from her mind, to her soul, to her form. On two separate dates I had her in my arms, and those were the best two days of my whole damn life to that point.

And then it ended when she said I didn’t have enough ambition, she wanted someone who was driven to make more of themselves than I was.

That was painful.

But who was I to tell her she was wrong? Although I was absolutely certain that if she did give us a shot we would both be astronomically happy. But she did not agree, so that was that – although we did stay good friends – and I continued to have strong feelings for her, which she knew and even appreciated.

The third woman, Karen, I had a fabulous first date with, but it was not meant to be. The turbulence she brought (or maybe that we created together) imploded our nascent relationship in short order.

Sometimes it’s hard to know whether having certain knowledge is worth the suffering it brings. Knowing how it felt to have Denise in my arms was like that.

Now I knew exactly what I needed – but now I also knew exactly what I had been without for all my life, and continued to lack, for the foreseeable future.

There were days, and not just a few, when thoughts of despair and worse seemed to fill my world, but I tried to get on with everything, tried to believe that some amount of hope for the future still made sense. Tried to gear up for a second pass at the online dating world.

And that was when a space rock landed on me and changed everything.

When I got home, it was good that I didn’t have anything else that needed to be done, because my thoughts were whirling. I had discovered that I could will someones “soul” out of their body, and if I did not hold onto it, they would die. If I did hold it, I could re-incorporate them just like I did myself, easy-peasey.

Such strange powers. Nevertheless, I was chuffed to have them. (“Chuffed” is a Britishism for “very pleased” – I’ve watched a lot of British TV growing up.)

What was more of a question mark is how I felt after killing someone. Sure, it had been in self defense, but I’d always heard about how taking life changes you, no matter what.

I guess what bothered more was that killing Kevin didn’t really bother me. I didn’t know if that made me a psychopath (or sociopath, always mixing those up), but in the end, I decided not to worry about it. I figured Kev had to die, and there’s no sense crying over what had to be done. So I moved on.

I counted up the money in the attache case, and sure enough it was fifty grand. Maybe I could afford to stop working tech support for a while as I dealt with my new situation and the complications it brought.

I poured a bowl of Marshmallow Froot Loops for dinner (only 350 calories for a 2 cup bowl!), played an MMORPG on the computer, and went to bed.

I awoke the next day to breaking news.

The first thing I do when I wake up is grab my phone and check for alerts, email, etc – just to see what the day was going to bring. So you can imagine how I reacted when I saw the headline “Florida teen uses superpowers to save hostages!”

Holy hell.

I skipped the morning routine, rushed into the living room, and flipped on the TV, scanning channels for the story. Which wasn’t hard, the story was everywhere, all normal programming suspended as the world met their first super. These days it’s almost a pickup line, “So, where were you when you when you first heard about Glory?”

But in the moment, my heart pounding, I watched history unfold in real time.

Her name was Gloriana Garcia, a Cuban American teen living in Florida. And her powers were not subtle.

The announcer said that there had been a bank robbery that went awry yesterday. The robbers hit just as the bank was closing. Someone pressed the silent alarm, and the robbers couldn’t get out before the police arrived, so they took hostages. An overnight standoff with the police ensued and things weren’t looking good. Then, in the wee morning hours, Glory arrived.

At this point the broadcast showed video of a young girl flying in like a comet, blazing with golden fire. She landed in front of the bank, still shining with that golden hued light; her diminutive stature radiating raw power. As law enforcement stood there with jaws dropped, she entered the building.

The video switched to the bank’s internal cameras, showed Glory effulgent, walking into the lobby where the three robbers were also stunned – though they still held their weapons pointed in the hostages’ direction.

The hostages were all in one group; Glory shot a beam of amber energy at them, enveloping the hostage group in what looked like some kind of hemispheric protective barrier.

One of the robbers came to his senses, grabbed his machine gun, and shot at Glory, but the bullets seemed to simply hit her shining self and land at her feet. She just stood there, head tilted, waiting for the shooter to realize his attack was pointless.

The shooter did, and switched his aim to the hostages, but again the bullets slammed into that shimmering barrier and fell to the ground, spent.

Suddenly Glory brought her hands together, palms facing up and out, and generated a thick blast of energy right at the shooter, which shot him into the wall, hard. He fell down and did not get up.

She strode forward two steps, her hands now wide apart and buzzing with incandescent power. The other two robbers dropped to their knees and quickly placed their hands behind their heads.

The video then switched back to an external shot of the prior hostages streaming out of the bank, followed by two of the bank robbers, still with their hands on their head, and bringing up the rear a petite dynamo with a man over twice her size slung over her shoulder. Handing them over to law enforcement, she flew away as reporters shouted unanswered questions at her.

The news feed cut back to the anchor, who reported that an exclusive interview was given by Gloriana Garcia to a local reporter, which would now be played. Cut to an interior shot of an ordinary middle-class home with tasteful if not expensive furnishings. A woman’s voice, presumably the interviewing reporter Gail Williams, said that she was invited to the Garcia’s house in south Florida to speak with Glory.

Cut to a living room couch with Mr. and Mrs. Garcia, a well-dressed Latino couple in their mid to late 40’s, and seated in between them a pint-sized pixie teen, with a confident and composed bearing: Gloriana, currently not glowing at all. The reporter set across from them in an upholstered chair.

GAIL: So, Gloriana, is it? [holds steno pad, ready to take notes.]

GLORY: [smiles warmly] Just Glory, please, only my gran calls me by my full name.

GAIL: And you’re 14 years old?

GLORY: I am.

I noted how at ease Glory seemed to be, how poised and self-assured, unlike fourteen-year-old’s I’d known. A mane of wavy honey-blonde hair cascaded down her back, while in the front precise bangs stopped above the deepest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. A small nose and wide, though not full, lips that always seemed to have a smile at the ready completed her radiant look.

Her fair skin, in addition to the rest, made me wonder if her biological father was the one seated beside her, or if she had been adopted. On the other hand, for all I knew, some Cuban Americans had blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin; living in rural New Hampshire didn’t exactly qualify me to be an ethnic expert.

In terms of stature, she didn’t look like she was quite five feet tall and no more than 85 pounds, slender but not skinny. She wore a stylish short dress that seemed simple and elegant. I noticed she sat with good posture, not slouching like the rest of us, and when asked questions, she usually paused a moment before answering them.

GAIL: You claim to be the same person who stopped the bank robbery in Hialeah this morning?

GLORY: I am. [Holds up her right arm horizontally in front of her in a non-threatening way. Golden energy suddenly suffuses her hand and forearm, and is just as quickly re-absorbed. Glory drops her right hand back to join her left, in her lap.]

GAIL: Wow. [Stares, then regains composure. Glory waits with good humor.] “How did – What can – What – ”

GLORY: [laughs, almost musically] I know, it’s quite extraordinary. I did that too for awhile. I’ve had these powers less than a week. I got them when the meteorites fell last Sunday. I had just had a slumber party with some of my best friends the night before, in a tent in the backyard, and we weren’t in a hurry to get up. We didn’t even know about the meteor fall until it happened – we had turned off our phones. But we got up in a hurry when we heard an loud impact, way too nearby.

GAIL: That must have been around 12:30 or 1pm. [Glory nods] Then what happened?

GLORY: We went looking for the site of the crash, which we found only a few houses down in the middle of our street. One of my girlfriends had brought and turned on her phone, and was videoing us and our find, would you like to see it?”

GAIL: Yes, please! [Glory takes a remote and turns on the TV, cuing up the video on her phone, she plays it on the TV.]

ANNOUNCER [VOICEOVER]: We were given a copy of the video, which we will now play for you.

[A shot of three girls, the one in front being Glory, walking briskly down the street to and fro, seeking. Glory shouts, “There, in the street!” and the group runs up to a small crater in middle of the road, at the center of which lies a rough hunk of crystalline stone, about 18 inches across, glowing a dim violet even in the noonday sun.]

I watched closely, knowing in my gut what would happen next.

[While the other girls act more hesitant, Glory enters the crater, albeit cautiously.  One step at a time, she closes distance with the meteorite until she stands above it. She holds her hand above it, lowering it slowly.]

GLORY: It’s not hot! [Glory’s hand is only 6 inches above the meteorite now.] Just a little warm. [Slowly Glory carefully lowers her hand further, and then gently touches the rock itself.]

[Violet energy violently surges in a brilliant blast so bright as to make the afternoon seem dark by comparison, discharging into Glory and knocking her backwards ten feet. The smartphone camera shakes as the holder jumps back, and turns towards where Glory has fallen.]

[As Glory picks herself up, a burst of familiar golden energy coruscates around her once, and then again, blasts erupting from her body, circling her skin like lightning, and being re-absorbed, faster and faster, to a crescendo. Glory emits a full-lunged guttural shout and then falls weakly back to her knees, the light show over. She is panting rapidly as her friends gingerly approach, including the one filming.]

[As her friends help her to her feet, they inquire as to her well-being, and the video fades out, back to the living room with Gail and Glory, flanked by her parents.]

GAIL: So you got your powers from the fallen meteorite? Does that mean your powers came from outer space? [Gail laughs, a little shakily.]

GLORY: [Laughs more genuinely.] I guess so.

GAIL: So what made you decide to intervene in the hostage situation – what made you decide this was the time to get involved and use your abilities to help people?

GLORY: [Smiles again.] What makes you think that this was the first time I used my powers to intervene and help people? I think this was actually my eighth – but I’m starting to lose track. This was however the first time I was caught on video. And I knew I would be, but I couldn’t stand by and do nothing when I knew I could help save those hostages from a bad turn of events. So I did what I had to do.

GAIL: And I’m guessing that that’s why you agreed to this interview, you knew that despite your… aura, that your face was recognizable and people would figure out who you were.

GLORY: [continues] …and so I have had to make some very important decisions rather quickly. I’ve gone public. I’m reaching out to certain law-enforcement groups to offer my help. I’d like to put my new abilities to work for the common good and make a difference wherever I can – but keep in mind, I am only one girl. I can’t save the world and I can only be in one place at one time. But I’d like to help where I can and give what I have to give.

GAIL: What are your new abilities?

GLORY: That’s for me to know and for others to hope they don’t get to find out. [Smiles.] One more thing, if I may. [Gail gestures Glory to continue.] I have a very public identity now. So I’m declaring my friends and family off-limits. I’m a good girl. I don’t want to kill criminals, I want to arrest them. [The smile fades as she looks for the first time right into the camera.] But come after the people close to me and you will be making it personal. So don’t do that. [She looks back at Gail and smiles warmly again.]

The show cut back to the announcer at that moment, who said “So there we have it – Superheroes aren’t just in the movies anymore, now they’re in Florida – and who knows how many more are out there as we speak, with their own meteorite tales? Something tells me the world will never be the same.”

I turned off the TV.

No shit, Sherlock.

There’s a difference between rage and fury.

Rage is uncontrolled, often violent. It seems to overflow a person. It’s like an endless storm rolling over anything in its path, especially including the person experiencing it.

Fury is focused, tight, purposeful. It gives clarity to one’s thoughts. It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane, with more self-control than you knew you could have.

The irony is that rage, being obvious and in your face, is the more scary of the two when really, it’s just a storm and will blow itself out given time. Fury is quiet, but make no mistake, it’s those who feel fury you should fear, not those who rage.

I’m human. I feel anger too.

Not all the time, of course – I wouldn’t say I’m an angry person. When I was younger I used to get upset over small things like stubbing my toe, but as I’ve aged I’ve gotten some perspective on stuff like that. For example, I’ve finally understood and accept that I’m a bit clumsy, and these days when I stumble I just catch myself, sigh, and move on.

But I’m the kind of fellow that wakes up in the morning and sings songs as I do my morning routine. I engage in playful snark with my friends. When I listen to music in the car I dance in my seat as I drive. And the rare times I am experiencing an intimate, fulfilling moment with someone I love I feel gratitude swelling in my heart.

By nature, I am an affectionate, positive, and friendly person.

What angers me is injustice, to me or to others. And when I and others are powerless to do anything about it, it is deeply frustrating. I find myself angry with the direct perpetrators of injustice – egotistic, greedy, intolerant people.

But what upsets me more are the enablers. The people who have it within their power to put a stop to all of this, but don’t, because they are willfully ignorant.

Take this last election cycle, and the asshole who won it, America’s 45th president, Republican Dominic King. Let me preface this by reminding you that prior to King, America had a two term black President, which didn’t sit well with a lot of wonderful (I say sarcastically) Americans.

Dom King. What a fucking schmuck. Vile, base, a braggadocious moron who gets by on bluster, perhaps one of the greatest bullshit artists of all time. King was running against the Democrat candidate, an eminently qualified woman who nevertheless was deeply unpopular. Why was she unpopular? Let’s break it down: of course the GOP hated her, they hate all Democrats and use any leverage they can get; that’s politics after all. But why did so many others dislike her?

Three powerful reasons. First, she was a legacy; her husband had already been a two term president, and people were sick of dynasties. However, the real reason no one liked her is that she was an INTJ personality type, like me, and it’s hard to be a politician and connect with people if you are that cerebral and that socially clueless. Believe me, I know.

But the real real reason even a cretin like Dom King could defeat her was this: she had a vagina. And right after having a two term black president, conservatives and even some of the so-called independents were not going to have a woman president!

And so Dominic King was elected – even though in the end more people voted for her than him, because the American electoral system overvalues rural voters and punishes urban ones, he got the electoral votes he needed to win anyways. (The GOP are as good at cheating as the Democrats are at losing on principle.)

And since King’s taken office, it’s been a total shit show that makes even liberals nostalgic for some of his worst GOP predecessors.

My point is this: the American voters had it within their power to put a stop to all of this, but chose to be willfully ignorant instead. They elected the man who fed them the line of bullshit they demanded.

As upset as I was with King for being who he was, I was far more upset with the American voters who permitted this man to be elected, just because he said what they wanted to hear. It is truly they who are the problem.

So I was angrier at King’s enablers than I even was at King. While I never stopped believing in human potential, the whole situation added to the mountain of evidence forcing me to take a dim view of human reality.

But the ones that upset me most where the theoretical allies that continued to also be lazy thinkers, who avoided self-questioning and also were buying bullshit that supported their narratives.

The crystal power folks, the anti-vaxxers, the anti-GMO people, the language police, and the progressive Christians. All willing to turn off their brains to their own chosen panderers.

And when the choice not to think results in injustice and harm, as it almost always does, I feel anger. My empathy and compassion for the victims demands it.

Nevertheless, I almost always sided with the liberals – they might be equally lazy thinkers as the conservatives, but at least they tended to be nicer people who caused far less harm with their policies.

So I continued being assaulted every day with humans of all kinds failing to live up to their potential, failing to choose pursuing wisdom over comfortable ignorance, failing to embrace reality instead of their chosen fiction. And seeing humanity each time paying the price, in climate change, in elected assholes, in anti-science hysteria, in war, famine, rampant injustice.

I’ve always been emotionally sensitive, and this avoidable planetary symphony of pain was drowning me. And yet I was powerless to address it.

I never raged, but my fury at the unacceptable situation with humanity rose a little higher every day.

And then, like a wish come true, I got powers.

The EMT’s worked to stabilize their patient as the ambulance tore through the town, attaching IV bags and giving quick injections. The man on the stretcher was unresponsive, eyes open but clearly not present. They flew down Route 12 to Keene, bypassing traffic along the way, halting at the emergency entrance to Cheshire Medical.

Fluidly they brought him from the ambulance to the ER. More controlled chaos as the ER doctor on call and two nurses descended. Tests were run, diagnoses made, more IV bags and injections resulted. The patient remained oblivious.

Finally the hubub died down and the patient was moved from the ER to a normal hospital bed. Nurses came in occasionally to administer drops to prevent his eyes from drying. Still the patient remained mentally absent.

The next day a team of doctors doing rounds visited the patient. Doctor Ellen Zhang was lead, and she brought five others with her, most younger and more junior.

“This is a new addition, what’s his story?” she asked of a younger man holding a clipboard.

The young doctor checked his paperwork. “Unidentified white male, late 40’s or early 50’s. Found unresponsive behind the CVS pharmacy in Walpole.”

“Drug issues?” asked Zhang.

“Toxicology came back clean, and there are no signs of drug use such as needle marks. Our John Doe was suffering from some slight exposure, but recent weather hasn’t been cold enough to truly pose life-threatening problems. He was severely dehydrated when he arrived, making it plausible that he may have been back there for a few days. His clothing does not suggest homelessness, but he carried no wallet, although perhaps that was stolen. He presents a persistent hypoconscious state, likely some kind of coma. He is currently stable and at no known risk of complication, of course until we know what is causing this state we can’t be certain of that.”

“First schedule John Doe for a cranial X-ray, and then a cerebral fMRI. We need to find out whether this state is functional or organic. It would also help a lot to find out more about this patient’s story, to do that we need to know who he is. Anyone reported missing?” Zhang inquired.

“No one that matches our John Doe’s description.” replied the doctor with the clipboard.

“Well hopefully the scans will give us a little more to work with, but keep an eye and ear out for local news reports about anyone missing that could be our guy.”

“Will do.”

Dr. Zhang gazed at the patient who stared with unfocused eyes at the ceiling – or beyond. Then she turned and walked out, and the group followed.

My head was spinning again.

Now that Glory had outed herself, the world knew we existed. I had figured I got these abilities from the meteorite, and that seemed certain now – which meant that probably many others got powers too, how many, I had no idea.

That was not the most time-sensitive matter, though. The assassin-for-hire Kevin had spoken of a follow-up contract after they had finished with me, a target in Florida. I had a chilling idea who that target might be.

I had to find Glory and warn her.

I jumped on the Internet and started searching for Glory Garcia – and of course I found tons of search results, but nothing that lead me to where she lived, apart from the likelihood it was in somewhere in the town of Hialeah or nearby.

And according to my search, Hialeah had a population of a quarter of a million people, and was part of the greater Miami metro area of over six million souls.

This was not going to be easy. On top of that, most of the residents spoke Spanish before English, and I did not.

I suddenly had what I thought at the time was a bright idea: instead of trying to track Glory, perhaps I could track her friends and find her that way.

I found the video of Glory’s interview online, including the part where she found the meteorite with her friends and got her abilities. I downloaded it and watched it over and over. Then I went back online to look for more clues.

After a few hours of some very thorough searching – I did tech for a living, you’ll recall – I stumbled onto a whole section on the dark web devoted to people speculating and investigating these new occurrences. Even though they had no more clue than I did, I was able to find an unedited copy of the original phone video of Glory getting powers. I downloaded it, analyzed it, and hit pay dirt.

Encrypted in the video stream, the camera had stored the GPS of where the video was taken. Not down to the precise spot, but at least I now had only a one-block radius to search – and I was sure I would know the street when I found it.

Before I went out in public though I figured I had better conceal my identity, in case anyone saw me. I grabbed a dark hooded jacket from my closet, but I also needed some way to hide my face. I wasn’t willing to wear a ski mask, so I jumped online to search for options, and I found the perfect solution: a steel mesh lower face mask from a paintball supply store. It would cover my nose, mouth, and cheeks, and with the hood down should make it impossible to identify me. It would also make me reminiscent of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, but that couldn’t be helped.

I astralled to the store in Ohio and purchased it along with some black matte spray paint, which I used on the mesh. It dried quickly. Assembling my outfit I looked pretty nondescript, especially in dim lighting with my hood pulled up and forward.

Now the hard part, I looked for a livestream feed somewhere near my destination, and found one not far away. I studied it for a bit, then astralled there.

It was warm compared to New Hampshire, and a touch humid. I tried to pull out my phone and found that in astral form my pockets didn’t work – so a found a nook where I wouldn’t be seen and took back my body. Then checked my phone, and started walking in the right direction. When I got to the rough area, I found another out of the way nook and abandoned my body again – scanning the neighborhood would be much easier if I could invisibly fly and pass through solid objects.

So I did. I started crisscrossing the area, flying right through all the buildings in the process.

That’s when I stumbled onto the girl I had seen before. Not Glory, but one of her friends from the video.

She was tied to a chair, terrified, surrounded by a dozen of what could only be the local Miami mafia.

The building was some kind of storage facility or warehouse, with massive wooden crates stacked up inside. One corner of the building was free of crates; this is where the girl and her captors were.

It was a motley crew of mooks, with automatic weapons slung low. They seemed to defer to a short squat balding man who looked battle-tested; nevertheless, another man, possibly his lieutenant, was the one interrogating the frightened girl, while the boss gazed in an almost bored fashion into the corner.

The lieutenant gripped her jaw in the vise of his left hand, hard. “Your girlfriend’s been making it tough on my boss! How’re we supposed do business when she runs around telling folks they ain’t got to pay protection? That ain’t right, she’s messing with our business, and we don’ allow that!” He smacked her across the face, also hard, making her lip bleed. The young girl heaved with fresh sobs.

“I know you think she got powers and we can’t stop her, but we can. She’s only protected when she glows, see – and she don’t glow all the time. All we need you to do is get her to come see you when she don’t know nothing is up, and a bullet to the back of the head will turn her off for good, freaky powers or no.”

“So you’re gonna do this for us, cuz you know what’s best for you, right?” He gripped her jaw again staring her dead in the eye. “Because ain’t nobody who can’t be killed!“

He looked at her, and despite her trauma she only looked back at him in despair, crying – but not giving in. He made a fist and drew back his arm, slowly.

I’d had more than enough; I was seething. I took form before them all.

This got boss-man’s attention, as well as everyone else’s. The lieutenant looked at me. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded in surprise.

“The man who can’t be killed.” I replied.

Boss-man gestured to the others and automatic weapons came up pointing at me, firing.

This time I wanted to make a point, so I didn’t vanish. What I did instead was drop out of my body the instant I felt pain or impact, and pop immediately back into a new one, so quickly that my corpse barely had time to begin falling to the floor before it was erased as I resumed in a new, hale, physical form. I did that countless times in the space of seconds, as they wasted round after round of ammo attacking me. I have no idea how odd I looked with my form being hit, replaced, hit, replaced, like an insanely fast strobe, but after about ten seconds they stopped firing and looked back at Boss-man in confusion.

I too waited, to see what he would do.

He didn’t seem bothered, and he took his time. He looked at me, at the ground, and back at me again. He smiled, and began exaggeratedly slow-clapping. Then for the first time, he spoke, a good-natured expression on his face.

“Well done, well done. You’ve proven your point. You’re amazing, like a god, sir. And you have taken ol’ Frank Halloran’s breath away, you really have.” Frank gestured towards one of his men to give him an assault rifle, and the man did. Frank held it up, sighting along the barrel, pointing it right at my head. “But maybe a head shot, eh?” he asked.

I gamely waited for him to pull the trigger and reflected on how surreal my life had become.

But he didn’t. He smiled at me and lowered the weapon.

And fired a stream of ammo right into the young girl’s chest, killing her almost instantly.

The sudden noise of the discharge broke the temporary silence like a rocket. “No!” I shouted as she crumpled, her young soul quickly leaving her body.

When free of the body, souls melt extremely fast. Kev had gone in under a second. The girl’s soul melted away no slower. I didn’t even have the time to get into astral form.

Nevertheless, I just barely grabbed her soul right before it was lost. I almost didn’t get it in time.

Once I knew I had her, I did leave my body, immediately and instinctively taking us both on a fast but short astral trip into the closest public space – a local grocery store nearby. I rapidly brought us to a secluded back corner of the shop. “Stay here and wait for me, OK? I won’t be long.” Her astral head nodded, clearly not knowing what was going on, but accepting me as a friend regardless. I put her back into a new healthy copy of her body – like I had done to the assassin Joyce once and to myself countless times. I guessed that her corpse disappeared at the same time.

The girl, now physical, hunkered down.

“Good girl” I said, although of course she could no longer hear me, as she was no longer astral and I still was. I zipped back to the warehouse and popped out.

Everyone was still there, still processing the shock of seeing the girl and I vanish fifteen seconds ago. Frank shouted “Kill the bastard; maybe he’ll run out of lives!” as he himself ran back into the stacks of crates, deeper into the warehouse.

I ran after him, again strobing my body each time they hit me, shrugging off each bullet as it came – and then I, too, was in the maze of giant crates, stacked 20 feet high.

“A million bucks to anyone who gets him dead!” Frank shouted from somewhere up ahead. I could hear from the surprised exclamations that his mooks were definitely up to try.

In hindsight, I know what I should have done. I should have dropped back into the astral plane where I was invisible and untouchable, found Frank, and dealt with him. But my adrenaline was pumping, I was furious, and perhaps my subconscious had more dramatic plans, so I didn’t think to do that.

Instead I stalked through the maze of crates, pivoting to quickly check for threats at each junction.

One pivot brought me face to face with two mooks. Before they could aim or fire, I had pushed their souls out, which melted away as their bodies hit the floor.

A moment later I felt pain between my shoulders as another mobster got line-of-sight on me from behind. I dropped and popped 180 degrees to face him – push – and he was gone too.

One of them had the idea of climbing up on the crates for a better vantage point, but as soon as he started firing, I swept his soul away too. After running into a few more of them I figured that there couldn’t be many left.

In the middle of the maze of crates was an open area around thirty feet across. There Frank, his second-in-command, and two foot soldiers waited, and they began firing as soon as they saw me.

I had an idea. I ended the foot soldiers with a brief thought, and let the lieutenant run out of ammo killing me as many times as he liked, as I closed with them. Soon he did indeed run out. I could see the two of them sweating.

“You’re not natural, you’re not even human!” Frank accused me.

“Maybe yes, maybe no – does it even matter?” I asked, calmly. “Frank, I want to show you something.” I pulled Frank’s soul free from his body, but prevented it from dissipating.

All the lieutenant could see however was Frank’s body hitting the floor. He looked at me with malice, no fear, and said “You think you scare me? You think you bad like that? Sure you can kill me but you nothing! You ain’t got no family! You ain’t got heart! I’ve done everything for my family! I’ve killed men, women, kids, I turned my back on mom and pop – cuz I found my real family! And I die for my real family! You got nothing! Nothing!!”

I ignored him and turned to Frank’s soul, hovering there under my power, next to me. “Frank, you a Christian boy? Catholic maybe?”

Only I heard Frank’s answer, defiant even now: “I go to church. I confess my sins, and I do good for my people. I got nothing to worry about in the afterlife, no hellfire for me!”

I suddenly grinned under my mesh mask. “Frank, keep an eye on your buddy’s soul, will you?”

Meanwhile the lieutenant was starting to lose control of his temper. “Maybe we see if a beat-down can do what bullets can’t!” he said angrily, and came at me.

I plucked his soul from his form, holding that one too. “Watch closely, Frank.” I said. And then I let the young man’s soul go.

For the first time Frank witnessed a soul melt. Not flit off to heaven. Not mysteriously vanish. No he saw his lieutenant’s soul quickly fall to smaller and smaller pieces, vaporizing in it’s destruction, as soon as I released it.

He saw, with his own eyes, something I only just realized earlier myself. A soul is not indestructible and without a host – or powers – it dies, just like the body does.

The soul is not eternal, and now Frank knew that. No afterlife. No heaven. Just nothing.

I put him back in his body, and he fell to the ground weeping with his hated newfound atheism.

I turned to walk away, to leave him there, but Frank still wasn’t done. “No!” he shouted. “You don’t win! It doesn’t matter if you kill me or let me live, Marco was right. We’re a family, more’n a hundred strong. We will find you and we will find that young bitch Glory too, and we will kill you both, and if we can’t do that there are other ways to make you wish you were dead! You are NOT the arbiter of life and death!!”

I whirled around to face him, my fists clenched. Standing in front of me was all that was wrong with the human race. And there were plenty more where he came from. Maybe they couldn’t hurt me, but what about my family and friends? What about Denise?

I’d never been angrier than that. I lashed out at him with my hatred, him and all his family, dead in this warehouse or elsewhere, every one of his people who had ever hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. I was blazing fury like a supernova.

Through clenched teeth, I responded intensely, “I AM the Arbiter of life and death.”

And then I released my fury on him.

My astral form from within my body erupted with an outpouring of dark energy, dozens of shards of my soul-stuff jetting from me, flying like shadowform sparrows, out into the world, at unthinkable speeds. In less than a second each had reached its destination and returned, diving back into my astral form and rejoining with my soul.

And in between I felt my will kill every deplorable member of Frank’s outfit simultaneously. Instantly. Globally.

Before I took my next breath, I noticed that Frank was dead too.

I had ended 153 very bad people, without even knowing who or where they all were.

And from that death, new life emerged. The birth of a new world.

With no anger, but replete with purpose, I repeated quietly, as if in amazement, “I am the Arbiter of life and death.”

And the Arbiter resumed his search for Glory.

I astralled back over to the Latina girl I had rescued, popping in ten feet away so as not to startle her. Asking, “Are you OK?”, I crouched down next to her.

She sniffled, but nodded. “What’s your name?” I inquired.

“Gabriela.”

“Well, Gabriela, you’re safe now. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but those men won’t bother you or Glory or anyone else again. Today, it wasn’t your time – but it was theirs.”

She swallowed and nodded, still overwhelmed.

“OK, are you able to get yourself home from here, or can I help?”

“I live just down the street; I’ll be OK.” She began to regain some composure.

“Great – one last question – I am looking for Glory too, to warn her about some other bad people – can you help me find her?”

In that moment I saw fear blossom again within her, and she hesitated. Suddenly I realized I didn’t need her help; the answer had been in front of me all along. “Actually, Gabriela, you don’t have to tell me, I just figured out how to find her. Your loyalty to Glory is very special; I’m sure she knows what a good friend you are. If you can keep being her friend, she’s going to need you a lot along the way.”

Gabriela looked up at me and smiled; like the sun breaking through heavy clouds. “She’s my girl.” she said.

“You’re a good friend. Don’t be afraid to let Glory know if you need her help too, because that lets her be a friend right back.” She smiled widely.

“Well, Gabriela, I’ve got to go. I’m very happy to make your acquaintance.” I took her hand, and on impulse brought it to my lips, like in old movies. She smiled shyly.

I stood back up and was about to walk away when she said, “Mister – what is your name?”

Pausing and turning I grinned and replied with a laugh, “The Arbiter of life and death, but you can call me Arbiter.” I left the store, chuckling.

I walked a distance away, ducked into an alley, then pulled out my phone. I was a little embarrassed I hadn’t thought of this sooner, but lucky for Gabriela that I didn’t. I pulled up the video of Glory’s interview again and studied closely that living room.

Then I simply astralled there.

The living room was exactly the same. I made my way through the house invisibly, seeking Glory. The rest of the house was much like the living room: tasteful though not ostentatious. The Garcias’ decor gave the impression of people who were proud to have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were now enjoying the fruits of their labors, without it being too much, tasteless, or vain.

Finding no one on the first floor, I went to the second. Same thing, but there were stairs leading up to possibly an attic, so I glided up the stairs and through the door.

To my credit, I reacted pretty quickly, jerking myself right back through the door – nevertheless, the damage was done, the image of Glory lounging on her bed in underwear burned into my brain. I sighed.

I popped back in at the top of the stairs and knocked on the door. “Just a minute,” Glory said through the door, and after a moment she opened it.

She took one look at me, exploded in energy, and shot a dazzling bolt of the stuff at me with both hands.

I realized far too late what she was seeing – not just a stranger, but I was still wearing the mesh facemask. Oops.

I reacted far less quickly than she, and the bolt struck me in the center of my chest.

And did absolutely nothing.

I held up my hands in the universal sign of surrender. “I’m not here to fight, I’m a friend, another person with powers, and I have important information for you.”

Glory held her next attack back but kept her glowing hands up. The look on her face betrayed her concern that the last attack hadn’t done a thing, but she said “I don’t know you, and creeping like a stalker into my house isn’t what friends do.”

“May I remove the mask?” I asked. She nodded, still wary, and I took it off. “My name is Maxx, I’m from New Hampshire. I got powers the same way you did. And I had an assassin try to kill me. Before they failed, they let slip that they had just picked up another job in Florida. When I saw you on the news, I put two and two together and looked for you to warn you.”

She lowered her hands slightly, though not all the way, and looked me over. “You’re old.” she said.

“You thought only children could find meteorites?’ I replied, giving back as good as I’d got.

She shot a hostile look at me at being tagged a “child”, and then suddenly grinned. “Fair point, old man” she said. I grinned back at her, and lowered my hands as she lowered hers – though she kept the aura on her body. Smart girl, I thought.

“Come up,” she said, “I’m not allowed to have boys in my room, but then you aren’t a boy. It remains to be seen if you’re a man.” she said, still smiling. She turned and went back into her room. I followed.

Her room was part nerdy, part girly. She had highly graded papers and what upon closer inspection turned out to be science fair awards on the walls, and a couple of posters of scientists – Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan – on the walls. She had a heavy pink-unicorn-based theme going too. She sat on her bed and gestured me to the chair in front of a desk, which I took. “So, you know my thing, is yours similar?” Glory asked, obviously referring to our powers.

“Not even a little. My powers are based on souls and astral energy. If I get killed – and I’ve died a LOT recently, I just become a floating invisible spirit.”

“Then what?”

“Then I can easily pop myself back into the world in a new healthy version of my body, which makes my corpse vanish when I do.”

“That’s really weird. Handy though, to be basically immortal.”

I nodded. “Listen there are two things things you should know.”

“About the assassins? I assume they killed you but you got better.”, Glory offered.

“Not about that.” I took a deep breath. “You see I can only teleport in my astral form, free of my body, and when I get to where I am going, I stay in my astral form because it’s invisible, I can pass through solid objects, and I can fly in that form too, as fast as I can think.”

“Sounds fun.”

I winced, “Not the ideal choice of words. You see, I was looking through the house for you, and I can’t physically open doors in my astral form, so I just pass through them…”

Glory caught my drift immediately, staring at me. “Get a good look, perv?” she asked, testily.

“I flew right back out the moment I saw what I saw” I stammered.

She looked at me silently for a moment, not with hostility per se, but definitely not happy either. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking.

She apparently decided she wasn’t done tormenting me, and asked, “So, did you like what you saw? Do you think I am pretty?”

“No! I mean yes! I -” I gulped and tried again, “You are a very beautiful young girl, and after you become an adult, I am sure that you will have no trouble in the ‘finding a mate’ department, even without powers being in the equation.” I took a deep breath, stopped, and wished I was anywhere but here. But I bore my punishment and waited for her reply.

She waited a beat, and then laughed, not unkindly. She waved a hand dismissively and said “I guess it’s no worse then you seeing me in my bikini, relax – but no more peeping on me!”

“Scout’s honor!” I swore.

“What was the other thing?” she asked, more at ease.

“Other thing?” my mind blanked.

She laughed again. “You said you had two things to tell me other than about the assassin?”

I remembered. “Oh yeah, when I was looking for you, I didn’t know where you lived, so I searched the neighborhood and found your friend Gabriela first.”

She stood up suddenly, “You didn’t!!” she accused, good humor vanishing.

“What? NO! I found her captured by a bunch of mobsters in a warehouse near here!”

“Is she OK?” she asked quickly as the almost-anger in her transmuted instantly into fear for her friend.

“She’s fine, I rescued her from them. And they won’t be back for more.”

“What does that mean?” Glory asked, settling back down on her bed after learning her friend was safe.

“I kind of killed them. All of them. In that gang or mob family. Everywhere.”

She looked at me, her brow furrowed. “Really?” she asked. I nodded.

“You killed the entire Halloran crime family, world-wide? How long did that take?” she asked, facetiously but uncertainly, as if hoping this was some kind of joke –  but afraid it wasn’t.

“Turns out that’s one of my gifts. I was so upset with them for threatening your friend and threatening mine as well, and I just kind of willed it. I could feel over a hundred of them die in the next instant, everywhere.”

“That’s horrible.” she said, looking at me as if unsure for the first time if I was actually one of the good guys.

“I didn’t mean to do it – I mean, I didn’t know that I could – but I don’t regret it. These were really bad people, and the world is better without them in it.”

Her aura of power went out, dismissed, as she exploded at me verbally, “Who are you to decide that?!”

I didn’t waver, though I spoke quietly, even gently: “The Arbiter of life and death.”

She just stared at me for a while.

It was then I realized that I could see something different in her – or rather, there was something I couldn’t see – her soul. I looked down at my own hands as saw the familiar doubling still present there. Then I understood.

“Do you have a soul?” I asked.

“Pardon?” Glory blinked at me.

“I’m guessing you do have a soul. And yours is the only one I can’t see.”

Glory got it immediately. “My blast on the stairs – when I shot you – didn’t do anything!” She paused briefly, “Our powers don’t work on each other!”

“No, it would appear not – and I am not sure that’s a good thing or a bad one.”

A new silence descended, less uncomfortable than the first, as we thought about it. I broke the silence first. “Well, be on guard. I don’t know who it was that paid to end me, they called themselves “archangel” to the assassins, but I’m guessing you were on their hit list. Now that the public knows about you, I’m not so sure they want the heat – but stay safe and careful.”

“Always.” nodded Glory. “The assassins – dead I am guessing?”

“I let one go after making sure she would leave her profession behind – I don’t think she relishes the chance of ever seeing me again. The other one, yes, I killed him, is it not OK to kill assassins either?”

She sighed, and said “We are the powerful ones. It’s up to us to set the standard.”

“I agree,” I replied, “and I like to think I am. But something I’ve considered long before I got powers is this: sometimes you have to choose to do a small bad thing in order to do a large good thing.”

“I don’t believe the ends justify the means.” Glory flatly said.

“And that’s your call to make when it comes to you, but for me, I am not willing to indulge in keeping my hands clean if that means suffering and death for innocent others that I could have prevented, and that’s my call to make for myself. Sometimes I think we have to make a choice, whether we want to be good, or do good.”

“No thirty.” she said.

“What?”

“It’s what old-timey reporters in the west would send to their editors when there was more copy to come. Used to be in the days of the telegraph, the transmission would end with “xxx” – the roman numeral for thirty. So when a reporter wanted to let his editor know that the story was still breaking…”

“…they would type ‘no thirty’, I get it – that’s your way of saying we’re not done talking about ethics, eh?”

Glory smiled at me, no energy aura, but lots of natural warmth. “Right. And in the meanwhile, try not to kill anyone, ‘kay?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I stood up. “Umm, when I astral travel, I have to start by leaving my body, which apparently I have to do by willing my own death first, so you’ll see my corpse here for a second or two. Don’t worry, as soon as I take my new body at the destination, the old one goes away.”

She laughed, a peal of bright sunshine. “Well, Maxx, it was an education meeting you. Thanks for helping out Gabriela, even if I don’t approve of the methods. Oh, wait one sec.” She bounded over to me, I thought to give me a goodbye hug, so I awkwardly hugged her back. It became even more awkward as I realized that she was only trying to get something out of the desk drawer behind me. She looked up at me with laughing blue eyes, head tilted, an entirely amused expression on her face. My face flamed with embarrassment as I quickly stepped away.

Glory rummaged in the drawer and came up with a pen and pad of paper, she wrote something on it, folded the paper, and handed it to me. “My new private number.” She said, still greatly enjoying my faux pas.

“Um, I need to get a new private number, I’ll give it to you when I do.” I said trying and failing at playing it cool.

“‘Kay. Bye Maxx.”

“Ah, bye.”

I astralled back home, retaking physical form almost as soon as I landed. Then I grabbed some Oreos and tried to forget being a complete doofus.

Fear and anger are called “negative” emotions, but love and its related feels have brought me far more suffering than any others.

Of course, you might ask if I believed that turning my back on society’s attempt to mold me really wouldn’t be punished? But the monstrosity of the punishment doesn’t fit the crime – and is quite cruel and unusual.

But that’s because human rejection isn’t a punishment for my “crimes” – it’s humanity’s revenge. We’ll see who has the last laugh.

Of course, there’s a whole other equation of choice and punishment, and I (mostly) own that.

As a mindful intellectual, I have spent the bulk of my time on this earth trying to understand facts better and trying to answer the deeper questions. And I have. But while I was doing this, everyone else was exploring and experiencing emotional growth.

I, for the most part, wasn’t – my focus was elsewhere.

I didn’t understand that there are different kinds of physical attraction. Genevieve, for example, was and is a beautiful woman, tall, slender, undeniably pretty. When I flirted with her 20 years ago and she flirted back, I was shocked that someone with such a classic and elegant beauty would be attracted to me. But being a fish out of water, I didn’t pursue her, because it was not my nature to pursue anyone – I didn’t have the skill or the confidence.

But she pursued me! She brought me into her office, sat me down, and confronted me about our interest in each other. So began a two decade journey and relationship.

Now, on the other side of that journey, with new emotional experience and growth, I think my emotional ignorance may have stolen possibility from both of us – because I didn’t know that there was a more primal level of attraction.

So after the long, slow, fizzle out of our romantic relationship I began to reach out to make new connections, to explore.

That’s when I met Denise.

Well, actually, I met Denise several years before, while working on an IT job for a client – she worked there too. Petite and sweet, I was smitten with her right away, but at that point I was still too reserved to ask her out. If I had, who knows what might have happened.

Recently I had made it a practice to engage in more social events – normally an anathema to me, as I prefer to nest and not go out. But I knew that nesting would not help me find a new mate, so I pushed myself into partaking of external social events.

Upon signing up for one of these, I noticed a familiar face – Denise’s – whom I thought I recognized from the job way back when. I sent her a message, she replied, and we began talking.

Talking quickly turned into meeting. Out first conversation was about philosophy, as that was the event we both had signed up for. But philosophy led into more personal conversation about choices that we and our family were making.

I was enchanted. Denise was intelligent, thoughtful, warm, kind, and adorable.

I mean that quite literally; I adored her. I adored her sweet smile, her warm eyes, her feminine loveliness, and most of all, her petite stature.

And this was the other kind of physical attraction. Beauty is attractive in any of it’s forms, but when you find the specific kind of beauty that calls especially to you, that level of enchantment is completely something else. That kind of allure doesn’t fade over time. Denise wasn’t just beautiful to me, she was epic.

As it happened, I had just seen a very funny and heartwarming movie in the theaters; I asked her if I could take her to it – she said yes. We enjoyed it together.

We started exchanging long and increasingly intimate emails. Denise would tell me about her life and I would tell her about mine. She was incredibly emotionally supportive; I held myself to the same standard in supporting her.

The next time we met was absolutely the best day of my life. Hear me now, I am not using hyperbole. This is not poetic license. This is simply a true fact.

I should have known the mother of all falls awaited – but that was still to come.

We got together to hang out at the local froyo place, but it didn’t open until noon, so we got some breakfast at the diner across the street. We talked. We connected.

Eventually the froyo place opened, and we moved our conversation over there, taking one of their comfy couches. I asked to hold her hand. She let me. Her touch was something I cannot put into words – but I tried. She smiled and leaned against me. I put my arm around her. We cuddled for quite some time.

I was ecstatic.

Eventually the date ended, and we made plans for another. This time I wanted her to come to my house, so that we could grab the couch and converse, or maybe watch one of several films that were deeply meaningful to me.

She came, we sat down, and she melted into my arms. I laid light kisses in the top of her head. She rested her head on my chest.

There is no heaven, but if there was, it would pale before the feeling of having Denise in my arms.

This is when things went south.

Even though Gen and I were exes, we were still amicable  – and still housemates. I was happy to introduce Denise to Gen. Denise was not happy I still was living with my ex.

Strike 1.

Gen and I through the years had found ways to aid each other in life tasks. For example, I brought in the wood from the garage so she could have a fire in the stove in the kitchen for ambiance. Gen cooked me a batch of food each weekend that I could reheat during the week. Even though we were now housemates and not partners, we still did these things for each other. Denise saw it as Gen mothering me.

Strike 2.

While Denise and I conversed, somehow the subject of credit scores came up. I guilelessly mentioned that mine was not good as I never took out loans; I did not like using credit. That I preferred to pay for what I needed, and if I couldn’t pay for it, I would do without. This became a conversation about resources and means. I was honest.

Strike 3.

The date still ended cordially, and we spoke of making plans for the next one.

Denise called me up in a few hours and dumped me over the phone.

Welcome back, epic pain and suffering.

Denise and I continued to exchange emails. She apologized for dumping me by phone, and I was able to get to the bottom of why she didn’t want a future with me – all of the above, but mostly my lack of ambition, my comfort with being the grasshopper instead of the ant, from the old parable of the grasshopper and the ant. You know the one.

I didn’t blame her. If she truly wanted an ant, and thought an ant would make her happy, who was I to tell her she had to pick me instead? I’m not that self-centered. So we stayed friends, chatting on email and facebook about our lives. I didn’t pretend I wasn’t in love with her; she didn’t ask me to.

If this was the “friend zone” others had referred to, I didn’t mind it. She seemed to be rational and honest, both with me and with herself. And she seemed to truly care about my well-being, to be emotionally invested in how I was doing. We remained close, and she remained a light in my life.

Fast forward a few months. I’d had a few more dates with others that had started promising, then turned left into nightmare territory. I hadn’t given up, but I was losing the strength to hope for more.

I was in screaming, desperate pain. As bad as things were before I met Denise, now that I knew what my soul needed, now that I knew how it felt to have that need answered – the pain of going without was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

It was unbearable.

I needed something to give me respite from the pain, if only briefly. To allow me to gather my strength. I needed affectionate touch. I discovered professional cuddlers existed, but they charged an extremely high hourly rate. I looked for “cuddle exchange” resources, but found none.

And then something occurred to me: even if I wasn’t mate-material for her, Denise really did care about me. She was a kind and empathic woman; she liked me. She had spoken often in our recent exchanges of how sorry she felt I was in such distress.

So I asked her this: to provide some temporary relief, would she be willing to occasionally just sit on a couch with me, cuddling, so that I could find a little shelter from time to time and gather my strength to find a more permanent solution – a new mate?

That’s when she revealed for the first time that she was now dating someone.

Of course I back-pedaled immediately – obviously, if she was dating someone, she couldn’t expect the average guy to be OK while their date cuddles someone else! I mean, I – as the date – would have been fine, but then I have never been the jealous or possessive type.

But then I paused – something still seemed a little off. So I asked her if she wasn’t dating, would she have been up for it?

She said no, and trotted out a list of reasons:

– I was being dramatic. I wasn’t really in that much pain. (I actually was, if anything I underplay my pain because I don’t share myself so easily and don’t like asking for help.)

– She didn’t want to be a band-aid when I should be looking for a permanent solution. (I explained the better metaphor was that of a burn victim who needs pain meds while he arranges for a skin graft, that this was just for pain relief to enable me to keep searching, but she was not moved.)

– That she didn’t see me as a manipulative person, but she didn’t want to be wrong about that. (Wow. Just wow.)

– And that she didn’t want to take responsibility for me and have me become dependent on her. (Which honestly sounded to me like a conservative talking about the evils of welfare, that standard “if you help someone, you discourage people from helping themselves, so you should never ever help anyone.” In other words, BS.)

Denise closed with a happy positive thought – she told me she really did like me, did think I would find the right person, and that the pain is only temporary.

We ended the conversation and I sat back stunned. And then I realized my mistake.

I had loved Denise, and this caused me to see nothing but the best in her. To trust the good things I saw.

But in the end, she was just an ordinary, normal, human being. She was kind, mostly. She was empathic – to a point. She liked me somewhat and wanted good things to happen to me – as long as it didn’t involve her.

And above all, she had to find a way to frame the situation that wouldn’t cause her to question whether she was actually was compassionate in deed as opposed to words – first by downplaying my pain, then by pretending her help would actually be a hindrance to me, then be not-exactly-accusing me of being manipulative. She even ended with positivity, the ribbon on this gift of absolute non-help.

Denise was just the same as everybody else.

I had hoped for so much more – for someone I could love even if she didn’t love me back, because she was so fundamentally good, unlike most people.

Instead I got a brutal awakening and a cure of my love for her.

Sic transit Denise.

Love sucks. But I had no other option than but to keep looking for it, to answer the need for the oxygen of my soul. To try, when I was able, to stop drowning.

So that was the state of despair and pain I was in before I was killed from a rock from the sky – ironic, given that I had been thinking of the value of suicide more and more often.

It was Friday late afternoon by the time I got back to my apartment. I sat down in front of my computer to game to take my mind off things, but realized I didn’t want to play any – certainly none that involved combat and death.

I was still shocked by my own elimination of over a hundred souls.

Instead I reached over and grabbed a pad of paper from my desk. If I’m going to have such crazy powerful abilities, I reasoned, then I had best start understanding them better, and track what I learned. I spent the next few hours trying to recall in detail all the different ways I had used my abilities, to understand what it meant.

So, what did I now know I could do with these powers?

Well, I couldn’t die – I mean my body could, but all that did was eject my astral form, my soul, out of my body. And unlike others, my soul didn’t fall apart when free of a host. I wrote that down – that I was effectively immortal.

And once in my astral form, my soul was both invisible and intangible – meaning that the physical world could not affect me and vice versa. Instead, I simply passed right through solid objects. I wrote that down too. I also noted that in my astral form my motion was under my full control, and I could hover, maneuver, or fly at any speed – even faster than light. I could even skip the space in between and astrally teleport directly to any location I could picture or that I had an image for.

I noted, too, that I could assume astral form any time I liked – though doing so invariably killed my body.

Another power I had was astral sight – the ability to see souls, whether someone else’s or my own. When I saw souls they appeared as a dim, silver duplicate of that person’s own body. Using this ability, I had witnessed what happened when someone dies – their soul left their dead body and immediately fell apart.

I had been thinking of it as a disintegration, but I realized now that was not accurate. Disintegration implied a lack of cohesion, but what I saw was more like a lack of coherence, as if the elements of the soul lost the unifying factor when not in a corporeal host – when outside of a body, in other words. So instead of disintegration, what I really had witnessed was better described as decoherence.

Either way, the fragility of the soul and the fact that all souls apart from my empowered one fall apart almost instantly when separated from their bodies, made an undeniable case for the non-existence of an afterlife.

Speaking of souls outside of bodies, I also had the ability to eject people’s souls from their bodies just by willing it, immediately killing their body in the process.

I could also stabilize their free soul to prevent it from decohering – but if I did not, it was curtains for them. And if I did stabilize their soul, I could hear them speak, whether I was in astral form myself or back inside my body. In fact, all of my powers so far worked equally well regardless of whether I was in my body or in astral form.

I stopped scribbling to ponder anything I may have left out, then started writing again.

Upon stabilizing a soul, I could then control it’s movement and position the same way I moved my own. And also just like with my own soul, I could take any free soul and enflesh it with a new body duplicating the owner’s old one. When I did that, the corpse of the old one simultaneously vanished.

Furthermore, my experience with Glory showed me that empowered people like me and her seemed not to be able to apply our abilities directly to each other – meaning that if I were to come into conflict with another person with powers, it would probably be unlikely I could pluck their soul or in any way affect them. Happily, the reverse also seemed to be true – if one of them had a mind-control power for instance, I didn’t have to worry about it working on me.

The only power that left unwritten on my pad was my ability to kill dozens and dozens of targets simultaneously, without knowing even who or where they were, by specifying some criteria. Somehow I had grown a multitude of shards from my soul that had detached into dark sparrow-like wisps of astral energy, which found the desired targets and killed them, and returned to merge back into my soul.

I put down the pen and pad, frowning and thinking.

I made up my mind and abruptly held out my hand. Looking down I saw my astral hand within my physical one, a dim, textured grey form that I could still see after I shut my eyes. Keeping my eyes closed, I tried to will a single sparrow-form soul-shard to grow from my soul and detach.

Effortlessly it did, and hovered there wisp-like, as if awaiting my command. It sort of made sense it would obey me, having been made from me. I opened my eyes.

“Move over to the window.” I directed, and it did. “Go over to the counter and bring me a spoon.”, I tried next.

It went to the counter and dipped toward the spoon I wanted, but passed right through it. It hovered uncertainly near it. I had another idea.

“Wait one minute and then kill me.” I told it.

It flew back to me and hovered, and about a minute later I was looking down at my dead body from my astral form. “Huh” I thought.

So these sparrow-wisps could probably only do what I could do – which again made sense. I popped back into a new body, vanishing the old one. “Now, return” I told the wisp.

It dove toward my soul, melted into it, and was gone.

I looked at the clock, it was winding towards early evening by this point. One more test, I thought.

Throwing on a light jacket, I left my apartment and the building. I walked into a large field behind my apartment complex. Standing in the center, I took a deep breath, and tried to create as many sparrow-wisp things as I could, as fast as a could.

Mere seconds later, with seemingly no effort on my part, the sky was filled with a countless number of them, from horizon to horizon. Far beyond thousands, there were as many wisps in the sky and air as there were grains of sand on any beach – and yet, I felt utterly undiminished.

Overwhelmed yet again, I recalled them all back into me – taking less than a second – and called it a night. Minutes later, I took my bed and claimed the sweet release of sleep.

When I woke up, I immediately remembered that it was Saturday – and Saturday was weigh-day, the day I weighed myself each week to chart how my diet was progressing. I’d started this diet at over 270, but after losing one to two pounds per week through caloric intake control, I was down to last week’s 243.8 – and falling. I’d had a few setbacks along the way – most notably my birthday, with cake and pizza! – but overall I was making good progress toward my ultimate goal of 180.

So I got up, headed to the bathroom, and stepped on the scale, hoping to see a number below 243. Honestly, with all this meteor weirdness, I hadn’t been that great about watching what I ate over the past seven days, and I would have been really happy just to not have gained weight.

The digital scale read 216.8 pounds.

I rubbed my eyes, stepped back, and tried again.

216.8 pounds.

I yawned, went to the sink and splashed my eyes and face with cold water, trying to make sure my eyes were clear and the last remnants of fog had left my brain. I went back and weighed myself a third time.

I got the same number again.

I went into the living room puzzled, sat down at my computer, and verified what my weight had been last week – 243.8 pounds.

I lost 27 pounds in one week? I looked down at my belly, and now that I was looking, it was significantly less, though it still had more shrinking to do.

For the briefest fraction of a second I was frustrated with my situation, thinking “Can’t one thing make sense?!” – but then I reminded myself that I was immortal and should probably stop complaining.

If. If this weight loss wasn’t some sort of downside to my power. After all, I had been using my new abilities pretty hardcore for most of the week, from astralling all across the universe to mass murdering an entire Miami crime family, not to mention the infinity swarm of sparrow-wisps I had summoned last night.

Maybe chill out on the power use a little, I thought. Even as I thought that, I considered it unlikely that life would cooperate with me doing so.

I shrugged and went about my morning routine, trying not to obsess over the missing weight. I was only partly successful.

As I grabbed a bowl of cereal – no point in continued caloric self-denial until my weight stopped going down – I plunked down on the couch to see how the world had changed overnight. I soon as I tuned into the news, it came back to me: I was the one who had changed it.

The news reports were full of stories about a new empowered person, about how he arrived in Miami and rescued a young woman named Gabriela Gonzalez, a friend of Glory’s, from being interrogated. According to the reporter, the kid watched members of the Halloran crime family empty their weapons into the masked man, without hurting him. Then when they turned to attack her, he zipped her out somehow, went back to deal with the kidnappers, and then came back to make sure she was alright.

Oh, and he told her his name was “the Arbiter of Life and Death.”

But wait, the newscast was just getting good: apparently around the same time over a hundred and fifty members of this crime family dropped dead, although no exact cause of death could be found. This included members throughout Miami and Florida, and well as several dozen confirmed all over the US, Mexico, and a few in South America. All who died, as near as anyone could tell, at exactly the same time. Again, with no apparent cause of death found.

The world was flipping its collective lid over this – even more than I had thought they might. I guess it’s one thing to see someone like Glory, who not only seems to be everything a superhero should be, but whose powers are limited to affecting things in her vicinity.

But someone with a power that instantly strikes dead a whole lot of people all over the world at once – and to see that the owner of said powers seemingly wasn’t afraid to use them en masse – well, let’s say that people were concerned, to put it mildly.

As I flipped around the stations, one report caught my interest. They had done a deep dive on the Halloran crime family, and found that there were actually several hundred people in the organization at the various levels. And while 153 were no longer with us, plenty of the lower level members were.

But none that were known to have harmed others – only those whose offenses were minor were still breathing. Just the violent and abusive ones were dead.

I thought back to that moment of fury. I remembered lashing out at all of Frank’s people – all his people who had undeservedly hurt someone!

I’d only killed the deplorables.

I took a deep breath – what a relief!! I had been in shock that I had killed all of the Miami mob, no matter how good or bad they were, from top to bottom – but even in the middle of my fury, I had instinctively been selective about my targets.

And my sparrow-wisps had heard, and understood. After all, they were made of me.

Cool.

I felt better.

I tuned back into what the reporter was saying about me.

“…let’s not minimize this, the Arbiter killed over 150 people with no due process – he became their judge, jury, and executioner. And his reach looks to be global. I myself am feeling a little fear right now – what if he’s watching, and finds this report not to his liking – could I be next, with no warning, no appeal, just here one second and dead the next?

“We have to hope that the fact he spared so many other members of the Halloran mob is some evidence of his capacity for mercy. But if the Arbiter is as unkillable as Ms. Gonzalez suggests, their may be little law enforcement can do to stop him, especially if he can simply will death to anyone, anywhere, without even leaving his home, wherever that may be.

The reporter continued, “Glory’s comment on the Arbiter was also interesting, as much for what she didn’t say as what she did. When asked if she had any connection to this man or knew who he was, she replied by saying that she would never embrace or approve of such vigilante actions of summary justice, that she intends to work within the law and use her powers to serve the law as best as she could – not exactly an answer to the question, but still a firm denouncement of the Arbiter’s actions.

“For what it’s worth, the Halloran family members he spared seemed to get the Arbiter’s message, and are each embracing turning over a very new leaf. It remains to be seen what impact the Arbiter will have on the rest of the world.”

I shook my head, thinking “you’re telling me!”

I channel surfed some more, halting suddenly on the Global News Network, GNN.

The chiron on the lower third promised that coming up next was a professor of quantum physics who could explain the meteor powers.

I have never hated commercials more than the fourteen that followed.

And then the interview with the professor began.

They used one of those side-by-side frames for the interview, the reporter, Eileen Fairbanks, in the newscenter on the left, the professor in what seemed like his office on the right, seated in front of a camera. The title underneath the professor read, “Professor Mads Lund, University of California at Berkeley”.

Fairbanks began by introducing him as the chair of the Speculative Physics Department at Berkely, with a radical new theory that might help explain humans with powers. She first asked him about his department with the unusual name.

Professor Lund chuckled a moment. When he spoke, it was with a deep and gravely voice, tinged with good humor. “Well, Eileen, actually the full name of my department is the “Speculative Department for Physics Speculation – SDPS, you see.” he smiled. Fairbanks frowned and tilted her head in inquiry. “SDPS,” he continued, “Like Super Dooper Pooper Scooper.” He laughed again as a slightly worried look crossed the interviewer’s face.

Lund jumped back in, “You see, what people often call crackpot theories sometimes turn out to be the paradigm reinventions needed to take physics to the next level. Reality is frequently stranger than the establishment is willing to admit, so my department exists to push at the boundaries of what physicists are willing to consider. The SDPS is actually the only funded scientific establishment in the world dedicated to pursuing fringe hypotheses and deeply alternative conjectures.”

Fairbanks asked, “So for people who thought regular physics is strange…”

Lund chuckled again, “Exactly, our ideas make normal physics seem positively ordinary.”

“How many successful discoveries have you been able to nab, being at the vanguard of physics?”

Lund’s smile lessened, “Well, none yet, but all it takes is one! And even if we never produce an actual verifiable theory, we do great work in just broadening the overall global conversation of physics.”

Although Fairbanks was a pro, I could tell she was starting to be concerned with the interview, but having no other choice, she gamely continued. “Well, maybe you have your moment to shine now, Professor Lund – do I understand correctly that this new theory that you claim can explain these new abilities, is your own?”

The Professor grew cheerful again, replying, “Yes, indeed – as the chair of this department, I am of course one of the most prolific authors of these cutting edge ideas. Although I do need to correct you on one minor point, this is not a new theory of mine, but one I came up with over fifteen years ago. However, like many of the conjectures introduced in the SDPS, there was at the time no way to proceed with it, so I noted it and moved on to other ideas.”

“Could you tell us a little about this theory?” asked Fairbanks.

“Be glad to. Now one of the more mainstream theories in physics  – at least to us in the SDPS – says that our entire universe might well be a multi-dimensional hologram encoded in a two-dimensional surface. That got me thinking that perhaps the standard laws of physics, everything we know about the universe until now, might be just the first layer of truth about how reality works. I came up with the idea that quite possibly there could be a deeper physics above and beyond  – or hidden underneath, if you prefer – everything we know today,

“So I tried to imagine how that would work, and what evidence for such a hypothesis would look like. The second part was easy – if there were deeper physics, the evidence would be observations of events that seem to contradict our understanding of the universe on a fundamental level. And with the abilities of Glory and the Arbiter, I think we now have that.

“Glory’s abilities may just seem like what you’re used to seeing in blockbuster superhero movies, but to a physicist they are outrageous and dumbfounding. When she flies, for example, she utterly ignores inertia – likewise when bullets impact her and fall to the ground. Not to mention that there is simply no mechanism for a biological body to generate the kind of energy it would take to perform the acts she does. No, these abilities seem to violate known science on a fundamental level.”

Fairbanks interjected, “So you must be feeling vindicated. Tell us about what this deeper physics you worked on might actually look like, and what that says both about the universe as a whole, and for those of us without powers who may have to figure out how to live on this planet with those that have them.”

“Yes, exactly. I call the base approach Quantum Noetics – the idea that perhaps in a very real way, Plato was somewhat right, and quantized thoughts and concepts are ultimately the fundamental building blocks of reality. Of course, that was just the bird’s eye view of my insight, but to get serious, I needed to systematize it. So I built an abstract model of how such a system could, and possibly would, operate – a specific implementation of the overall concept that I call Attribute Theory. Let me present a simplified, math-free summary.”

“Please, the world is all ears.” invited Fairbanks.

“If we analyze the world in terms of pieces and parts, we look at matter, which breaks down to molecules, which break down to atoms, which break down to protons, electrons, which in turn break down to quarks – all relatively humdrum and materialistically reductive. And of course that approach does produce useful rules of matter and energy – the heretofore laws of physics.

“There’s an utterly different way to frame reality, to look for how it’s put together – instead of focusing on material constituents, we focus on conceptual constituents. ‘What’s a conceptual constituent?’ I’m glad you asked.

“In order for human beings to make the world intelligible, to understand it at all, we have to describe it. Those descriptions are made of attributes: tall, blue, heavy, transparent, and so on. Attribute Theory posits that attributes may be the fundamental noetic building blocks of reality. That every entity from galaxies to subatomic particles are simply bundled attributes, and that every process in reality can be understood as attributes being added or removed from entities.

“This oversimplifies things a bit, but consider attributes to be reality’s adjectives; bundled attributes, reality’s nouns; and changing attributes, reality’s verbs.

“This is Attribute Theory, and it explains a lot about what we are seeing with these unusual abilities.”

Fairbanks interjected, “How?”

Lund continued, “Well, for one, it explains how they do what they do. When they use their powers, they aren’t operating at the standard physics level at all. Rather, they are working at the quantum noetic level. So when Glory, for example, stops a bullet with her shield, the shield isn’t operating according to the usual rules, as it’s not having to counter the energy of the bullet’s inertia. Instead, at the noetic level, Glory is simply unbundling the bullet’s attribute of inertia – deleting it, if you will.”

Fairbanks carefully responded, “So basically you are saying that these quantum noetically empowered people are essentially editing reality itself, bypassing the normal rules?”

“Exactly!”

“But then doesn’t that make these Quantum Noetics practically gods?”

“That’s for religion to answer, not science, but I would say no, it doesn’t. The Arbiter aside, most of them will be mortal. Most will still have feet of clay – that is, they are no more wise for having these powers. Really, they are just gifted people, albeit with some potentially amazing gifts.”

“Why would meteors give these Quantums their abilities, though? And why those specific abilities? And where did those meteors, unlike anything we’ve seen before, come from?” Fairbanks asked.

“Well, I was getting to that.” replied Lund with a twinkle in his eye. “We know that some of the meteors that landed carried a crystal that contained an unusual kind of energy, both from first-hand reports and from Glory’s video. I believe this energy was Quantum Noetic in nature – a vibration, in essence, of the higher-order physics. When a person makes contact with it, they are literally touching the Quantum Noetic level of reality – not just with their body, but more importantly, with their minds. Attribute Theory is after all about how the mind noetically interacts with reality. So when their minds are exposed directly to this energy, it imprints on their minds – on their very essence of self – expressing itself as a specific capacity to modify attributes on the noetic level. And I strongly suspect that the particular abilities that Quantums receive is directly related to their mind states at the moment of empowering – either due to a prevalent thought, an ongoing concern or focus, or a strong kind of personality.

“Sadly, as far as we can tell, once the crystal broke apart and crashed landed all over North America, the energy within it only lasted a few hours before dissipating, We’ve recovered several meteor crystals from remote locations untouched by humans, none of which show any but the faintest trace of noetic energy that they once contained.’

“As to where the meteor crystals came from, or why they contained noetic energy to begin with, that I cannot say. Perhaps there was noetic energy leftover from the beginning of the universe that coalesced into certain crystaline rocks large enough to contain it, where that energy remained until the rock found itself falling to earth and blown into a thousand pieces, I really don’t know.”

Fairbanks paused. “Two final questions for you, Professor Lund. Will our new Quantums eventually run out of or lose their powers?”

“If my theory is correct, no – these people have been fundamentally changed, so now their powers work just like their capacity for music, or math, or trivia.”

“And lastly, can you imagine a way to suppress or remove a Quantum’s powers?”

“No, I cannot. A Quantum’s noetic ability is simply too fundamental.”

“Thank you for speaking with us. That was Professor Mads Lund, chair of the Speculative Physics Department at the University of California at Berkeley – and if even half of what he says is true, we may see him accept a Nobel prize before too long.”

I switched off the TV.

Time for the Arbiter to visit the professor.

I put on my gear (I couldn’t bring myself to think of it as a “costume”) including my face mask and hoodie, brought up a video of Lund’s interview, and sent myself to his office. I was curious what I would find – would Lund still be there? Was there a camera crew breaking equipment down? Or did that already happen in the thirty minutes or so between the end of his interview and now?

But the office was largely empty, save for the professor himself, sitting at a keyboard, working on physics, I guessed. I took a breath – or the astral equivalent – and stepped into my body.

Lund heard something behind fairly quickly, and swung around to see, an expression of curiosity, not fear, on his face. “And who might you be?” he unflappably said.

“First I want you to know I am not here to harm you.” I replied.

“Ah, the Arbiter of Life and Death!” intuited Professor Lund, seemingly not at all disturbed by his insight, rather almost cheerful.

“That’s what they’re calling me.” I couldn’t keep a little grin out of my voice.

“What can I do for you, Arbiter?”

“You seem pretty nonchalant compared to other interchanges I have had.” I noted.

“I’m sure.”

“Why, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Lund paused, looking for the right words. “I guess when I agreed to do the interview I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance that I was signing my eventual death warrant, and I accepted that. I did what I had to do. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil if I can avoid it, there’s still more I could do, but no matter what, what I have now done can’t be undone.”

“And what have you done? The interview??”

“It’s either obvious or not yet relevant, and I am fine with that.” Lund said somewhat enigmatically. A small silence grew between us.

After a minute, I spoke first, “Do you know more about these Quantum abilities that you didn’t reveal? I’d like to learn more about my powers.”

“Apart from the specific expression of my theory in symbolic math, which if you haven’t got the education would be meaningless to you, I do not know anything more about these abilities than I said. And I lot of what I said could be more accurately identified as conjecture, not knowledge. After all, I have no powers myself. Of course…”

I waited briefly for the professor to continue, but he didn’t immediately, so I spoke, “Of course, what?”

“Of course, if I had more data to process, I could learn more about powers, especially yours. If you chose to share with me what you know of your own abilities, then perhaps, together, we could develop some hypotheses about them, and test them.”

I was able to answer that one pretty quickly, “I’ll keep that offer in mind, but I am not yet ready to share with someone I do not know that well – or really, at all – that kind of privileged information. Maybe later, if we get to know each other.”

“And if I am still alive.” Lund added.

I nodded, and a new quiet space came between us. I had the distinct feeling that although he had played the card of his own mortality, somehow I didn’t come out on top with that exchange. For a moment I wasn’t even sure why I was there, but there I was, so I felt I should try to accomplish something.

I changed the subject, “So I’ve been on a diet for the past several months, losing about a pound or two a week on average. I’ve been weighing my self once a week, every Saturday morning. When I weighed myself this morning I found I had lost 27 pounds exactly over the past seven days. That seems a little extraordinary.”

Lund looked interested. “Yes, that’s interesting. May I see your face?”

I looked back at him, uncertain. “Let me verify two things with you first.” I eventually said. “First, I want your word that anything you learn because of me, you have to share with me. Second, if I show you my face, you are then fully responsible for never identifying who I am to anyone under any circumstances, period.” I didn’t mention the consequences; I didn’t think I had to.

Lund smiled, not discomfited. “Your first condition is intelligent, and I accept. Your second condition I also accept on the further condition that you do not reveal to any others any information you have reason to think I would want private, such as our conversation right now.”

I knew I could probably push Lund to accept my conditions without agreeing to his, but I honestly didn’t want to. His request was reasonable, and if I wasn’t open to reasonable requests, then I would be several giant steps down a path I wanted to avoid ever traveling.

“I agree to your condition, with the caveat that I won’t keep any promises made to you or anyone else that would somehow have the effect of causing pain or suffering to those who do not deserve it. Results are more important than principles.” I offered.

“A fine bargain.” beamed the professor, who then waited for the ‘big’ reveal.

“Are there any cameras in this room?” I asked cautiously.

“Just my webcam – quite a good one, I gave the interview this morning on it. Here, let me throw a handkerchief over it.” He did.

Just to be on the safe side, I took astral form and took a minute to look through not only this room, but the rooms next door, as well as the floor below and above, but all were empty of anything or anyone interesting.

When I came back to Lund, I found him kneeling beside my dead body, shaking my shoulder, asking if I was alright. I took form again, making the corpse on the floor disappear. For the first time I saw the professor look uncertain – and quite curious.

“What just happened?” he asked, as he re-seated himself.

I thought about lying, or simply not answering, but my go-to action was usually honesty, and my instinct told me that would be the right move here, for now. “Alright, well I wanted to check the surrounding rooms and floors for anything suspicious so I left my body and went astral, because in my astral form I can pass through solid matter and fly.”

“You didn’t seem to be breathing, though.” Lund noted.

“I wasn’t – the only way for me to go astral is to die. You know I can kill with a thought; I can also do that to myself.”

“Does it hurt?”

“When I off myself?” I replied. “No.”

“Fascinating.”

After a moment I realized that he was still waiting for me, so I lowered my hood and removed my mask.

He studied my face. “How old are you?”

“I turned fifty in February.”

“Do you have any grey hairs?” he asked.

“A few, why?” I took the ends of my long hair and searched through it for one of my greys to show him. I didn’t have many but I had a few, although right in that moment I couldn’t locate one. “I have a lot more grey in my beard.” I said, putting my chin forward to show him.

“Do you?” he asked. He stood up and opened a door at the back of the office that led into a small bathroom. He motioned me to come stand before the sink, then he gestured at the mirror.

There was no longer any grey in my beard to be found.

Lund patted my shoulder and moved past me back into the office to take his desk chair again . After a moment, I followed him. “What does this mean?” I asked.

“I bet you thought the lost weight was due to your use of powers; you thought by using your abilities as much you did, you were using so much energy that it had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was your body’s mass – yes?” I nodded.

“Well, if you saw the interview I just gave, you heard me say that these Quantum abilities are part of you, like your talent at music or math. These powers aren’t a like machine you have to keep buying batteries for, it’s more like the ability to whistle. Sure, you might burn a calorie or two whistling, but that’s about it. So if it’s not power use that’s causing your loss of weight, it must be something else, which is why I asked to see your face. It is not the face of a fifty-year-old. My guess is just as people tend to put on pounds as they get older, you’re losing weight as you get younger.”

I frowned, again taken aback at a new weirdness. “But why should I de-age? Am I de-aging so rapidly because of how much I have been using my powers? Are all Quantums de-aging, or just me? What does this mean?”

Lund smiled, almost annoyingly calm. “I don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you to completely put out of your mind the idea that how much you use your powers has anything to do with anything. Your ‘de-aging’, as you call it, has nothing to do frequency or intensity of power use. Also, I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that Glory is not de-aging, as I have seen several interviews with her over the past few days, and being only fourteen, even a small amount of losing age would be quite obvious on her.”

Lund leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and thought a moment. “My best guess is that for some reason, your current state is not in equilibrium, and the de-aging is trying to bring you into balance. Once you near the point of equilibrium, the changes should decelerate, then stop.”

“And how do we know if that point of equilibrium is me at four months old?” I asked, partially horrified.

Lund calmly shook his head, “Whatever the reason for your physical transformation, it wants to take you to a different state. Once we know what that state is, I think that will explain why this is happening. There’s nothing about de-aging to an infant that would explain it. But you should start weighing yourself every 12 hours and logging it, as well as keeping on the lookout for other changes. Not only will that help us build a better picture of what’s really going on, it will let us chart the acceleration and deceleration of the speed of the transformation, which will, in turn, let us plot the target point well before we reach it.”

“Well, thank you for helping me!” I said.

Lund shook his head, “You’re helping me too, helping me understand something new and interesting about Quantums.”

“Well, unless you have anything else, professor, I think I need to go have a think.” I said – although what I was really planning on was a long afternoon nap as respite!

“I do actually have some more things to share with you, things you probably would be happy not to know, but if you’re going to be an important piece in the worldwide game of Quantum chess that is now starting, you will need to know.”

“Like a band-aid,” I told him, “rip it off quick.”

“Quickly…” Lund corrected under his breath – and he was right. “OK, then” Lund swung his chair around to face me straight-on again. “I am aware of three things you need to know. As you may well imagine, the instant Glory appeared and was confirmed, I began deep data dives on sources all over the planet, looking for any clues to anything that could be Quantum related. I’ve found some items that I think you should be told.”

“One: A meteor fragment fell into a California women’s correctional facility. Shortly thereafter, five inmates went missing. I am printing out their names and information for you, in case you want to look into it. I would guess that at least one received an ability, that let them escape.”

“Two: As I looked into other meteor falls, I’ve come upon a pattern of missing people near several of the locations. A handful would simply be people with powers that have gone off grid, but I have found at least a dozen or so. That probably means kidnapping, or worse.”

I interrupted, “You might as well know that someone tried to assassinate me, and succeeded, although not for long.”

Lund interrupted me in turn, “…because the young lady who said that bullets didn’t hurt you was wrong – it’s just that you didn’t stay hurt.” Lund surmised.

“Correct. Anyway, I killed one of the assassins and scared the other one straight, but I found out they had been hired to kill me by someone calling themself ‘Archangel’, who also had a Florida job for them afterwards. Glory ‘came out’ the next day, so I figured that was her, so I went and warned her.”

Lund continued to put the pieces together, “…which was why you were in Miami to rescue Miss Gonzalez that day, because you were looking for Glory. How did the meeting of the world’s only two known Quantums go?”

“A little bumpy, honestly, but well enough.”

Lund nodded, “It’s probably a very good thing that you and she get along, and keep in close communication. Meanwhile, someone is disappearing potential and/or actual Quantums – apart from you, my guess is Quantums are not death-proof. I know this sounds all cloak-and-dagger, but I know a guy who is enmeshed in that covert world that you could talk to, if you want to follow-up on who might be behind it.” Lund tore off a sheet of notebook paper, wrote contact info on it, and handed it to me. “If you want him to take you seriously, share with him that you are the Arbiter.”

“Three,” Lund continued, “and this is the worst news, there is a very special psychiatric hospital, an asylum where they study the most high functioning but deviant minds. People who are alien to anything we would consider human. Most simply have no concept of empathy or morality – but they are almost always excellent mimics. Each has their own motivations, some choose their actions randomly, some take on identities that have a ‘higher’ calling, some consider themselves artists who paint on the canvas of human experience”

“One of the strangest and most unknowable patients wasn’t brought there after being caught, instead he just showed up one day at the gate, carrying three human heads. They took him in, and he had been there ever since. His real name and identity are unknown, but he chose for himself the name “Sunyata” when he was asked to pick one.”

“Since a meteor crashed into one of the facility’s dormitories, he’s been missing.” Lund handed me another datasheet he just printed.

“What you do with any or all of this information is up to you, just keep my name out of it, is all I ask.” Lund concluded.

I took another deep breath, “OK. We’ll talk more later – when I have more data.”

“Two final questions before you go.” Lund requested. I gave a wary nod.

“Are those the clothes you were wearing in Florida?” Lund asked.

“Well, the hoodie and the mask, I do change my clothes every day, you know.” I semi-snarked at him.

“My next question isn’t for you to answer right now, but to ponder along with everything else: why doesn’t your hoodie have bullet holes all through it?”

“Oh, that’s because – I mean – wait – oh, crap.” Now I had another power mystery to solve.

“Until we meet again.” Lund smiled, and he stood and gave a small formal bow.

I sighed, tucked the papers in my jacket, and astralled back.

Before I became a Quantum and was just a guy living a life, I had to worry about spoons and spreadsheets.

As a self-employed IT consultant, I was my own boss, which meant how I scheduled and spent my time was utterly up to me. In addition, it gave me lots of free time.

One might think with bountiful free time one could do so many interesting things – learn to play piano, become a master programmer, or just go out and have good times with friends. (Well, the last one’s not such an option for an INTJ introvert like myself, but I digress.)

But like always, it’s not that easy – not for people like me. I don’t just need free time to do something, I need free spoons as well.

I have mental challenges. I’ve been diagnosed with OCPD – obsessive compulsive personality disorder, although I would somewhat argue the accuracy of that diagnosis. I certainly have a touch of good old OCD, and heaps of certain kinds of anxiety – ironically, one of my greatest sources of anxiety has always been mortality, which could well explain why I got the powers I did, actually. And I’ve already described that pain of watching humanity self-destructively pile onto the savagery of the universe with their own elective cruelties.

However my greatest source of mental challenges is the brutal combination of two things: needing romantic love in my life as much as I needed oxygen, and seemingly having every possible obstacle to achieving that in my way.

What obstacles? Well, I am introverted, cerebral, quirky, a culture of one with unorthodox ideas, I speak without a filter and respond honestly, I don’t know and am unable to learn social niceties, I’ve had a developing hearing loss (tinnitus), I didn’t stand out in a group (more of a wallflower) and therefore dislike group activities, I am fully committed to rationality (never popular), I’m generally unwilling to go along to get along, I expect and demand fair treatment, I am a solitaire instead of alpha male, I make decisions pragmatically, I’m understandably cynical about others (though, sometimes not cynical enough!), I’m extremely anxious about asking anyone out, I have an intense personality when one-on-one, I am intelligent (which for certain people can be off-putting), I’ve been overweight, I’m average looking overall with no style, my clothes are practical but not cool, I have uncovered answers to many life questions so I appear arrogant when I’m merely informed, I am an extremely picky eater, I dislike the outdoors and physical activities and prefer staying in and nesting instead of going out, always, I am sometimes absent-minded, I lack interest in what I am not interested in and my interests are generally narrow (though deep), I’m more of a grasshopper than an ant (as indicated previously) and am therefore not rolling in cash and resources, I have one other significant appearance issue which I will speak of another time, and I am attracted to a limited set of women (any age, but must be petite).

Just a few things in the way.

On top of all that, I only have a limited number of spoons.

Some people seem to have a large pool of energy to draw upon. If they have two free hours at the end of the day, they can decide to do more chores from their task list.

Other people have a much smaller reserve of “go juice”. If they do a handful of onerous tasks at the start of the day, they may have no more capacity for accomplishing anything else productive, no matter how much free time they have left.

So someone created the “spoons” metaphor – I have no idea why they picked spoons, but they did. People with limited capacity for accomplishing tasks are said to have only a certain number of “spoons” – and each task they attempt uses one of those spoons up. When they run out of spoons, they are simply unable to be productive until they have recharged and gotten more spoons – which typically means the next day.

Some things I do don’t consume spoons – like watching something I like on TV. Other things, like catching up on billing and sending out invoices consume many spoons. Luckily for me, working on tech onsite for a client generally did not consume any. However, even things like trying to find a new game to play or a new TV show to watch consumes spoons, a nasty catch-22.

So I have to be aware of this as I move through my day. I have to make sure the most important stuff gets done first, else I might run out before it does. I also try to make my spoon use extra efficient – so that, for example, instead of pairing all my socks after they come out of the dryer, because I made sure all my socks are the same I could toss them all into a clean sock basket in the closet, and grab any two as I go. Find another fifty to a hundred time-savers like that and you require far fewer spoons.

Still, sooner or later one runs out. I usually ran out between noon and 2pm, and occasionally got a small burst later that day – but usually not.

Then the fun really began.

You see, after I run out of spoons, I still am well aware of all that remains to be done. It weighs oppressively on me. And in the case of finding a romantic love, I knew that until I get the tasks on that particular list done – write a profile, get new pictures, sign up for dating sites, etc, etc – I was unable to proceed, while I watched my life slip down the drain one day at a time. Once I hit fifty I was all too aware of the limited number of days I had left.

So when you have no spoons, yet still have something you badly need, and are nevertheless unable to progress on that front until you get more spoons, all you can do is obsess on being stuck.

Unless you can distract yourself – which is where spreadsheets come in. Not actual spreadsheets, metaphorical ones.

Let’s say that there’s a new video game I was excited to play. Spending my spoon-free hours playing it was a great way to pass the time without focusing on that being stuck feeling until I got more spoons.

In fact, playing that game might even give me another spoon or two!

Imagine that life is a giant spreadsheet, and every thing we do is either something we enjoy, or something we don’t enjoy that we do so that we can have something else that we want – like money. Which can lead back to having something we enjoy – like video games!

The things we do because we have to, not because we want to, are negative numbers on the spreadsheet of life. The things we enjoy – like watching our favorite TV shows, or playing video games, or whatever, are positive numbers on the same spreadsheet.

Generally speaking, the negative numbers are the things that cost spoons, and the positive numbers are the things that help you recharge.

However, once I felt what it was like to hold Denise in my arms, that immediately recalibrated all the values on my spreadsheet. I didn’t choose for that recalibration to happen, it just did.

Now things that before had been small positives were zero or had even turned negative. Things that had been large positives were now greatly lessened. Holding Denise was such a gigantic positive that all other experiences paled from comparison –  not something I had any control over, it just happened.

Here’s another thing: when you have very little positive in the life spreadsheet and mostly negatives, that affects you. Sure, when you get up the next day you have some more spoons, so you can do stuff – but your attitude and outlook dip lower and lower because as the spreadsheet negatives keep rolling in there is little positive to offset them.

So in the spoon-less second part of the day, not only was I stuck thinking about how much I still had to accomplish to maybe (if I was lucky) find any fulfillment – but my overall attitude cratered deeper as each new day’s negatives further overwhelmed that day’s positives.

Before I became the Arbiter, I was a depressed, even partially suicide-contemplating man, often found going to bed early, crawling under my blanket, and just sobbing my heart out.

If I hadn’t become a Quantum, my story could have had a much bleaker ending. Until the Sunday the meteor hit, the life I lived was a continually unfolding tragedy, every waking moment, one that constantly made my normally happy-go-lucky soul defeated and ready to call it quits.

If that meteor hadn’t hit.

My plan to visit the professor to eliminate some of my last remaining Quantum questions had backfired spectacularly.

Now I knew I was currently ageing backwards, but not why; I discovered I had the ability to magically repair my garments; I had a new covert spook to meet; I had to track down an escaped prison gang, one of whom was almost certainly a Quantum with unknown powers – oh, and then there was the other Quantum, the serial killer pyschopath, to deal with.

So I had all that going for me now.

Back in my apartment I dropped onto my replacement couch (the meteor-damaged one having been jettisoned earlier in the week) and rubbed my temples. I didn’t dare turn on the TV or check the internet in case there was some new earth-shattering Quantum announcement, which I really wasn’t up for right then. I scanned the information the prof had given me, and settled on the info for his covert contact:

Alias: Henry Hall
Phone: 202-555-9931
Instructions: Call, let it ring two times, then hang up. H will call back, usually within 30 minutes. Tell him you are the Arbiter and that ‘the Professor’ gave you the number.

Very cloak and dagger, I thought, but I followed the directions exactly.

21 minutes later I got the call, “This is H, how did you get this number?”

“From the professor,” I replied, “I am the Quantum known as the Arbiter. Can we meet?”

“How soon can you get to D.C.?” he asked.

“In minutes.”

“Meet me at the Washington Monument at exactly 2:17 pm, and sit northwest of the monument, facing it, on the nearby bench  Come alone, and do not look or act in any way that would draw any attention to yourself.”

I was about to reply, “Will do.” but before I could, the line went dead. Charming fellow.

I had a few hours to kill, so I came up with an excellent way to take advantage of the free time.

I took a nap.

I roused myself at two and put on my gear again (I had taken it off when I got home). I was of two minds about wearing the face mesh, but I decided to wear it with the hood up – i didn’t want to take any chance that my face would be seen or captured, and the mesh shouldn’t be noticeable with my hood up and all the way forward, especially if I kept my head down. If wearing a hood was unusual, well, that couldn’t be helped.

I studied a recent image of the Washington Monument and astralled right to it – of course no one saw, since I was still invisibly in my astral form. I flew around to find the closest location where I could pop back into my body unnoticed – an unoccupied public bathroom close by served nicely.

I followed the rest of “Henry’s” directions, walking to the Monument, finding the correct bench, and seating myself. I waited.

A fellow came and sat on the same bench, facing the other way, but he only stayed few minutes and got up and left. For a short while I wondered if maybe that was the guy, and I had been supposed to follow him, but after a few more minutes someone again sat down a few feet away, facing the other way. He didn’t speak right away.

Not knowing what to do, I waited.

“Do I know you?”, he asked.

“I think we just talked by phone – the professor gave me your number?”

“Are you A?” he asked.

“Are you H?” I replied.

“I’m going to get up in a few minutes. Wait sixty seconds, and then follow me. Don’t follow so closely that it’s obvious, nor so far back that you lose sight of me. Just act like an ordinary sightseer until we are alone.”

“Understood” I replied. This spy stuff was amusing, almost fun.

He did and I did. He led me around the unfamiliar city, and after half an hour of playing follow-the-leader I followed him into a seedy apartment building in an obviously poorer section of town.

Once inside, he led me to the third floor, and ultimately to an apartment door, which he entered. Sixty seconds later, so did I.

I was immediately grabbed in some kind of fighting hold, and shoved against the wall. I reacted near instantly by going astral, flying back fifteen feet, and taking a look. A man who I presume was H was struggling with my now dead weight just inside the door. The apartment was nigh bare, with little in it but a cheap bed, a small round table with three old and rickety wooden chairs around it, and some kind of trunk against the wall. I re-embodied, making the corpse the man was struggling with vanish from his arms. Suddenly seeing me across the room, he pulled out a gun.

“If you shoot me, you will definitely piss me off and not make a good first impression. Now, what the hell gives, dude?”

The short, wiry, and perhaps mid-forties nondescript man looked me over, and then put his weapon back away. “I suppose I don’t need any more proof you are who you say you are than that.”

“I could kill you and then maybe bring you back to life.” I said, still a little put out by being surprise-attacked.

The man held up his hands, palms outward, in the universal sign of non-aggression. “Peace.” He said.

“We’ll see.” I said, but I sat down on the threadbare bed cover.

The man pulled out a chair at the round table and sat. “Okay, you’re obviously the Arbiter. You can call me ‘H’, given the name I am assuming that our mutual friend supplied you with.”

I took the initiative, “I’m here to investigate the sudden disappearance of several possible Quantums, as well as an attempt on my life,” – at this, H smiled his amusement – “and a possible future attempt on Glory. All I know is that the hit on me was carried out by professional contract killers, they were hired for 100K by someone calling himself – or herself – archangel. They also said they had a follow up job in Florida – which I intuited was Glory. I would like to find the person or group – or agency – responsible.”

H nodded. “This is going to take possibly twenty-four hours for me to check my sources, meet me back in this room this time tomorrow and I will tell you what I can find.”

“Don’t you want to charge me for your help, or name a price, or something?” I asked.

“I think if I make myself useful to a man such as you, that I will make it to your benefit to look out for a man such as me.” H replied steadily, observing my reaction.

“Just as long as you aren’t one of those types who don’t care who they hurt.”

“Of course not – who needs extra enemies? – and noted.” he answered. “One more thing, your home is likely being watched by one or more government agencies, so be aware of that. Also, when next we meet, I will have a few questions for you I would like to ask – not about your abilities, but about your character and intentions – if you would permit me to ask them.”

“If you can get me some answers to my questions, I can surely answer yours.” I replied.

“I am going to leave now, wait ten minutes and then you can leave as well.” H directed.

“How about I just teleport directly home?” I asked.

H looked at me for a moment. I could almost see him re-framing his perception of me. “Why don’t you go first?” he offered.

I re-took my body after astralling back into my living room, imagining the expression on H’s face when my body hit the ground, then vanished again.

I did some chores, answered a few emails – and had an idea. I was starting to have contacts I wanted to keep in touch with, but I needed a private and secure way to do that, that couldn’t be snooped on. Given that I was a techie, I solved that problem with some offsite anonymous email accounts with integrated PGP encryption and no logging, and layered VPN proxied access over that. I obviously didn’t want any cyberpolice to backtrace my location and tell me I done goofed – if that happened, the consequences would never be the same.

I called up Glory, and told her how to access these new emails securely, then I popped back over to Professor Lund and showed him too, sharing with both my new private email address. I would tell H when I met him tomorrow.

Then I could avoid it no longer, I turned on the TV to catch up on what was new in the world today, expecting something new in the world of Quantums. I was not wrong.

The news reports were all about two new and very different Quantums. First, I found out that much earlier in the day videos were captured by several people of a black man in his late forties/early fifties flying across the skies of New York City, before taking off eastward over the Atlantic Ocean at speeds estimated to be in excess of many times the speed of sound – possibly even several thousands of miles per hour.

The Professor was right – these abilities really didn’t obey the laws of physics.

Based on pictures of his face from his slower progress around and through NYC, the networks had tentatively identified him as Kiza Kazadi, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Theories that he was returning to his homeland seemed confirmed when three hours later scattered reports began to come in of an unstoppable man with vast telekinetic power. I learned that the DRC has rich deposits of gold, diamonds, oil, and cobalt which have fueled much of that country’s struggles, not to mention rampant corruption, normalized violence against women, and a leader who has persistently remained despite the end of his term, with no new elections in sight.

If Kiza was returning to clean up his country, I wanted to see if he was making the situation better or worse before I formed any opinions. I couldn’t imagine him making it worse.

The other new Quantum was Jack Boynton. I tuned into an interview with him as it was just starting. He and and another man, both forty-something, were seated together on a couch being interviewed by some host via telecast. Jack had a natty but understated sense of style and seemed quite fit for his age.

The host, Kylie Von Holt, introduced the segment. “Welcome. We’re about to meet one of the world’s first Quantums who also happens to be the nicest guy you’ve ever met. Let’s give a big welcome to Jack Boynton and his husband Mark.”

There was applause – apparently the interview had originally happened on some morning show that day.

Jack sat with good posture, his legs crossed, hands folded on his knee. He replied, “Thank you for having me.” Jack’s voice was high-pitched and silvery with a pleasant cadence to it.

“So, you are a Quantum?” Kylie asked.

“Yes I am.” Jack beamingly asserted.

“Tell me about that.”

Jack glanced at his husband, took a breath, and began. “Well, I’m a travel agent back in Prescott, Arizona, and from time to time me and my husband like to get away and try some of these vacations that I offer, so that I know I am only giving the best to my clients! Well, we got a package that took us to the north end of Flathead Lake in Montana, very rustic, and while we were there, the meteors fell, some maybe a few miles away. So we took a hike to find one, and we did! Mark was a little more cautious, but the rock was all glowy, and purple is my favorite color. Well, you can guess what happened next! I bent over to get a closer look and slipped on the crater’s slope, and fell right on the darned thing! Big explosion of light, yadda yadda yadda, and I got powers!”

Kylie, paying rapt attention and nodding along, asked, “Can you share what your powers do?”

“Sure! It’s kind of related to my business. I can give people experiences that I dream up, virtual vacations, if you will. And the best part is that it takes no time at all! I could right now give you a three day weekend in Vegas, and when you came out of the experience, no time would have passed out here in the real world at all – wanna go?”

Kylie smiled and thought about it – her adventurous side won out. “Sure, take me to Vegas!”

For a brief moment both Jack’s and Kylie’s eyes seemed to lose focus, and then Kylie exploded.

In gleeful laughter, that is. She seemed instantly refreshed and amazed. “Oh my god, Jack! I can’t believe that just happened!”

“Well, technically it didn’t, but you still had the experience, didn’t you! Like when that waiter slipped and all those glasses fell?” Jack turned to the camera, “I went with her of course, to show her around.”

Kylie shook her head at the wonder of it all. “I just had a three day, two night vacation in Vegas, and I remember everything, seeing Vegas at night laid out below me from my 45th floor hotel suite, the taste of caviar, the excitement of playing the games – we even took in a show with Celine Dion! I even remember the dreams I had at night, it was absolutely real!”

Jack beamed at her. “So what I’ve been doing since Monday is taking a few select people from my clientele and helping them book virtual vacations. Some have been like yours, to a real location, but others have been to Wonderland, or Middle Earth – anything is possible! One woman even wanted to experience being a Quantum herself, so in her virtual vacation she had powers! I even helped a trans man have the experience of having an actual male body”

Kylie shook her head again in amazement. “Are there any limits on the virtual trips you can take people on?”

“Haven’t found any yet. I do need to have all the people going on the trip within eyesight. And of course it’s all virtual, nothing from inside ever comes out. But I can make any kind of experience anyone wants, and I’ve given people up to a month of virtual time, and I think I could have done much more, but I was worried they would forget about actual reality if they stayed away too long.”

“Do you have to always be in it too, or can you send someone on a trip that you skip?” Kylie asked.

“No, I don’t have to go along – but I often do, it’s fun to see the worlds people ask for!” exclaimed Jack.

“And I bet you and Mark have taken advantage of this ability a lot too, at home…” Kylie left the implication hanging.

Jack grinned, “We won’t say no!”

“Well, that’s just amazing.” Kylie said. “I wish you at home could experience what I just did. Jack, can they book a virtual vacation at your office in Prescott?”

“Sure can, just come down to the Boynton Travel Agency on Miller Valley Road. We even have some prepurchased souvenirs for some of the more earthly trips!”

I turned off the TV.

Wow.

I sat there a moment. Kiza Kazadi knew how powerful he was, but I didn’t think that Jack Boynton did. He could effectively take control over someone’s else’s reality, with the only stipulation being that he ultimately had to return them to the present time and place that he took them from.

I thought of all the things I could do with Jack’s powers. Give some repugnant politician a ten year jail term in the blink of an eye. Make an assailant lose track of where I was by layering a minute or two of fake reality on top of the real. Expose someone to their heart’s desire – or their worst nightmare.

Maybe it was for the best Jack was only using it to help people go on holiday.

Still, I couldn’t help but question his wisdom on coming out to the world, especially after my confrontation with the Miami mob boss Frank Halloran and the chilling words he had uttered, threatening my family. Sure, that threat was ended, but did any of us truly think there wouldn’t be more where that came from?

Which reminded me of H’s assertion that I was being watched. I had allowed myself to think that after my confrontation with the assassins, and especially after wiping out the Halloran crime family, that no one in their right mind would be tempting fate by crossing me, but I figured I may as well make sure.

So I geared up – just in case – and took to my astral form. Invisible, I flew up above the apartment building to scan the area.

If someone was watching me, then likely they were doing it 24/7, and it would have to be somewhere they had a clear line of sight on my front door. Obviously they would be doing so covertly, so maybe from a van or other parked vehicle, or from a building interior or rooftop – or from bushes and scrub.

I scanned around. Walpole along Route 12 was not overly crowded; there were only so many places that could hide spooks. I started with parked vehicles, even a mobile lunch meat vendor, flying through them to check occupancy, but no watchers.

I started combing through the stores and commercial buildings nearby: the garage, the creamery, the farm store, nada – no surveillance. I was starting to relax. After all, who would be stupid enough to spy on the Arbiter of Life and Death?

On a hunch I checked all the other apartments in my building, but no spooks there either. That left only a small handful of residential houses to the northeast.

I found them at 554 Main Street, camped out with a roomful of electronic surveillance equipment, in front of a window pointed right at my apartment building, only 500 feet away from my front door.

I recoiled back into my body, a deep chill going through me. Of course they couldn’t hurt me – but they could hurt – or threaten to hurt – my family. My father had long since passed away, but my mother and all but one of my siblings lived close by, in Cheshire county.

And this wasn’t some short-sighted mob guy, this was likely some smart, compartmentalized covert group, maybe government ops, or maybe completely independent – either way, it didn’t look like these guys were fooling around. These were the kind of people whose contingency plans had contingency plans. And if they were surveilling me, knowing who I was and what I could potentially do, they were probably prepared for me as well.

This was getting all too serious. For the first time in what felt like a long time, I felt fear.

I made a quick decision, went astral again, and went back to the spooks, to turn the tables and spy on them, to see what I could glean. It was still vanishingly unlikely that they or anyone else could detect me in astral form.

There were two young but hardened and professional men at their posts, one using various equipment to surveil, and the other doing some kind of paperwork, logging observations possibly. In my head I called them the watcher and the scribe.

The watcher said, “Wait a moment, his body’s going cold again, looks like he popped back out of it. But he’s wearing the full get up including his facemask.” I could see the watcher consulting various screens, one seemed to show heatmaps of my apartment right through the walls, the other showed ghostly outlines of the contents of my flat, including my own body – again, right through the walls.

“These Quantums give me the heebie-jeebies” remarked the scribe.

“That’s why we’re here.” replied the watcher. “Should we call it in?”

The scribe shook his head, “You know the protocol. We only call it in if he takes his body to him, or if he’s gone longer than ten minutes.”

A silence descended, which the watcher eventually broke, “Did you hear what Kazadi is doing in the Congo? Our cousins in the CIA are not happy about it. He’s deposed their puppet and destroyed the criminal underworld that they spent years setting up, all in a few hours.”

“If only we had found and killed him before he learned what he can do.” lamented the scribe.

“Him and especially our Mr. Grey.” agreed the watcher. The scribe nodded. A new silence descended.

“I wonder where he is – Grey, I mean. He usually grabs his body after he gets where he is going, I don’t like to think of him being undetectable. He could be right here and we wouldn’t even know it.” said the watcher.

“I think we would know it.” said the scribe, as an uneasy vibe passed between them. I held back from fulfilling their worst fears, although I sorely wanted to.

A minute or so later, the watcher said, “Ten minutes, better call it in.”

The scribe picked up a bulky and rugged cell phone kind of device, unlike anything you could buy commercially, and dialed way too many numbers. “This is Messenger-6,” he said into the phone, “I’m reporting that our bird flew the coop ten minutes ago, but has left his egg behind. Yes. Of course. <pause> We’ll be ready. As you say.” He hung up.  “Operations says we’ll be going to phase three in 24 hours, and possibly ramping up to phase four shortly after that, so we should be prepared to take advantage of the next time Grey takes his body along or leaves his apartment normally to bug his place.”

The watcher whistled, apparently impressed. “I didn’t think we’d actually see phase three, so much manpower – are we getting reassigned to Grey’s family, or do we sit tight?” The scribe responded, “We stay on Grey, the new teams will begin to keep tabs on his family.”

My astral form didn’t prevent me from feeling even more chilled. This was getting out of hand.

The watcher broke into my looping anxiety with another comment, “You know, if we go to bug his house, he could easily return while we are there.”

The scribe countered, “If he does, we’ll be dressed like electricians and we’ll just tell him the super let us in.”

“Fifty-fifty he ends us anyways.” The watcher shook his head unhappily.

“Yeah, well, I’ll take those odds – what, you thought you were going to live forever? This isn’t about us, this is about serving and protecting the greatest country on the planet, and if we die in that service, it’s a privilege.”

The watcher looked at the scribe, and smiled. “Yes it is. Who is going to protect Americans and even the planet from these freaks if we don’t?”

“Amen, brother.” said the scribe.

I couldn’t listen to any more – nor could I go somewhere else and take my body, unless I wanted to let them bug my place. So I went back to my apartment and retook physical form, knowing they were watching me.

I felt trapped. There was only one answer that would keep my family safe. Maxwell Grey would have to disappear completely. And fast.

I had less than 24 hours. And the next time I left my apartment would probably have to be the last.

I would have to tell my family goodbye.

Knowing that they were watching me even now, I grabbed a pad and pen – at least they couldn’t see what I was writing! – and starting planning my imminent departure. I want to take as few things with me as possible, to travel light, also to avoid bringing anything that could be used to trace me. After looking around the apartment while trying to act casual for my watchers, I decided that all I really needed to bring was my $50,000 cash – everything else was replaceable.

I logged into the new encrypted and proxied email account I had just set up, and emailed myself stuff like telephone numbers and other info I didn’t want to lose. Then I started wiping my desktop and laptop PCs – really wiping them, hardcore. While the machines worked on that I pulled out my phone and jumped onto Facebook.

I typed: “Fam, Maxx here – I have a serious emergency issue and I absolutely need us all to meet tomorrow at 10am at Mom’s. Although I am physically all right, this is serious to the point that if you had other plans, cancel them. Do not bring kids or spouses. I only need about fifteen minutes of your time. I will be out of contact until then and won’t be responding to the phone, email, or Facebook, and I won’t be at home either, so don’t visit. Please just trust me and know I would not be asking this if it wasn’t critical. Finn, even though you live on Long Island, I think you will want to be there too, but if you can’t make it, know that I love you.”

I tagged my mom Katherine, my sisters Daphne and Esther, and my brothers Finnegan and Cameron, and sent it. Then I started resetting and hard wiping my phone too.

I eyed the attache case with all the money. I suddenly felt unsure of the carry limits of body-summoning – I had brought the case back from the assassination attempt by car, not astrally, if you recall.

What could I astral to me?

Obviously when I summoned my body, I would get my clothes (and I was not up to considering the Professor’s observation about bullet holes just yet!), but what else could I summon to me? What were the limits? It looked like this was the time to find out.

I decided to start small. I held my notebook in my hand and astralled to the other side of the living room. My corpse crumpled, still holding the notebook.

I retook my body again. The notebook was left behind.

Crap.

Well, I knew that if something was in my pocket, it would come. This time I tried holding a folded one dollar bill in my hand. And that worked.

I won’t list everything I tried, but over the next few hours I figured it out. In order to be able to summon something to me, it had to extend no more than about four to six inches from any part of my body at my time of departure/death – where it wound up after I dropped wasn’t important.

And if something did extend past that limit, it wasn’t just the part that extended too far that was left behind, but the whole thing. Guess it was a good thing I didn’t ski.

I determined that I actually could summon the attache case with my body, if I held it to my body tightly – but it was a good thing I didn’t need to take anything else with me.

As I did one more spin around the apartment, I couldn’t help feeling that one chapter of my life was ending, nostalgia already rising fast within me. I had lots of anxiety about all the looming unknowns waiting for me in the next chapter that was right around the corner.

I decided not to leave the apartment yet after all, but I didn’t go to bed either, thinking the watchers might just try to bug me with any opportunity, so I stayed up, splurging on snacks, watching TV, and just trying to stay awake. The favorite topic on every news show and discussion panel was of course, Quantums, so I surfed the latest theories and reports – from religious people who thought we were sent by Satan to test us, to other religious people who thought we were angels sent to rescue the world. There were those who hoped we were some kind of evolutionary leap, meteor rocks notwithstanding, and others for whom Quantums were just the latest ingredient in their complicated conspiracy theories. Some reports delved into any strange story from the past week about someone who might have a power, while other pundits weighed in on the short-term and long-term effects of Quantums on the stock market and economy.

I may have dozed a few times, but never for long, and no one was in my apartment whenever I jerked back awake.

Dawn arrived, the sun rose, and then it was time to go. I hugged the case with the money to my chest, and astralled to my Mom’s place in Keene. Not stopping to see who was already there, I flew invisibly to a nook nearby where I wouldn’t be seen, and summoned my body back to me – with the case, thank you very much!

I walked back to my mom’s. I could see many vehicles parked in her driveway, although I didn’t know which belonged to whom. I went in the door, up the stairs, and into my mom’s apartment.

My family was all there, already gathered. We were all on the rounder side of our physiques, to be honest – my mom’s genes at work, I imagined. Only my brother Finn hid it well.

There was my mom, Katherine, almost seventy, our matriarch with good humor – sometimes a bit oversensitive. I was her oldest, at fifty. The next oldest was my forty-four year-old sister Daphne, who almost always presented a jolly and good humored personality, but who I could tell was frequently stressed and anxious not far underneath it. Perhaps it was our near ages, or the fact that it was six years before my next sibling was born, or our family squabbles and rivalries, but I actually felt quite close to her.

My sister Esther came next, at 38, our family’s artist and cynic with a temperament to match – and yet she also had an child-like kind of happiness hidden inside, too. That combination was probably why I felt the most kinship of shared perspective with her.

Next came my brother Finnegan, who was one year younger, and as a child had been the sweetest little man you could ever imagine. At 37, he was still the sweetest, and we all loved him all the more for it.

Finally, my brother Cameron was only 28, and he lived with my mom. There was a purity and innocence in him that the rest of us took great joy in.

That was my family. And they were all there, some looking worried, others upset, everyone uncertain why I would ask this of them – Maxx, the eldest sibling and the one who never demanded anything from anyone.

That was why they came. So I began to tell them what I could.

Finn spoke first, “Hey, what’s going on?” he smiled tentatively, aiming for a light touch but not quite hitting it.

“Yeah, I hope this is important, I had to change plans with the kids.” added Esther – whose worried look nevertheless betrayed her hope that this was not as dire as she feared.

“Come on, out with it” my mom said. Five pairs of eyes stared at me.

My mouth suddenly went dry. This felt more real than real. I didn’t want to hurt them, and yet I was about to by leaving mysteriously.

“OK, there’s things I can tell you, and things I can’t yet tell you, but I have to go away for a while, and I can’t be in touch while I am away. I can tell you that to the best of my knowledge, I am in absolutely no danger, but it’s not inconceivable that some people might ask you questions about me in trying to find me – that sounds worse than it is. Anyways, you can answer all their questions truthfully, because there’s nothing you know that can help them.”

“What the hell!” exclaimed Daphne, “No, that’s not good enough. You need to tell us what’s going on.”

Cam nodded vigorous, “Yeah!” So did everyone else. “Are you OK?” asked my mom, with wet eyes.

I took a deep breath, “Listen, the more I reveal, the more trouble I will get you into, and the more trouble I will be in myself. You know me, you know that when I have made up my mind, I stick to it. So you know you are not going to get me to tell you what you want to know. Just know that I’m fine, and that when I get everything all figured out, I will come back and tell you all everything!”

While everyone else started trying to berate, plead, or cajole me into saying more, Esther alone remained quiet, thinking, until she said, “Didn’t you say that one of your neighbors in your apartment building had a meteor fragment crash through his place? Or was that your apartment, I wonder?”

Everyone else stopped talking as the implications of what Esther said sunk in. They all looked at me with astonishment as they considered whether I might be a Quantum.

“I am not going to talk about any of that, except to say that the only danger I am in is if I stay here and put all of you in danger. No one can hurt me.”

Cam burst, as though he could no longer contain himself, “My brother is a Quantum?! What can you do? Are you invulnerable, or have force fields? Can you fly?”

I pointed at him and commanded, “No!” – and he stopped, but he was grinning from ear to ear.

My Mom spoke into the silence that followed, “You always wanted powers – I thought it was unfair that people were actually getting them, but not you. Are you happy?”

“That’s another reason I have to go, is that I need to fly absolutely solo for a bit to figure out my happiest way forward.” I replied, but I smiled at her.

As chaotically loud as my family had been before, now they were eerily quiet, as they all thought through the possible ramifications of things I couldn’t confirm or deny.

“Can you at least say whether or not the power you got was cool?” asked Cam.

“I am not even saying that I did get any powers – but if I had, can you imagine any power I got being uncool?”

“Wow.” Cam’s eyes were big and his smile was wide.

Finn added thoughtfully, “But it sucks that you have to go it alone, are you sure you have to do that?”

I shrugged, “Nothing is certain about anything in life, but I want to err on the side of caution. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“OK Bro.” Finn gave me a strong man-hug. Cam jumped in right after with a hug of his own, and soon they were all hugging me.

I stepped back, and now I had a tear in my eye. Cam suddenly noticed the silver case I had brought with me, “What’s that?” he asked.

“Traveling money.” I replied, which got surprised looks all around. “How much?” persisted Cam. “About fifty K.” I said.

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Well, don’t be a stranger.” Daphne said pleasantly, as she pushed forward to give me another quick hug, quietly picked up the case, and stepped back, whistling a normal tune, looking off into the distance.

“Daph!” I mock shouted at her. “What?” she said, “oh, this? You weren’t going to take that with you, were you?”

“Gimme.” I commanded. She handed it over, teasing, “Geesh, look at Mr. Greedy!”

“Really, though,” Daphne added seriously, “Be careful, and let us know you’re OK as soon as you can, okay?”

I nodded, misty-eyed again. “OK guys, I love you all. See you soon.”

Suddenly there was a new flurry of hugs, and I wasn’t the only one with moist eyes. I strove hard not to falter, to stick with the plan for their very safety, and walked out of the apartment and down the street.

And that was that. I couldn’t go back home to my doubtlessly bugged-by-now apartment. It was time to stop thinking about going back, time to move forward. I had a few hours before I had to meet H again in DC, so I astralled to DC, to that same crappy section of town, and bought a by-the-day room with cash, no ID, no questions asked. I got my key, found my room, and let myself in.

It was dilapidated, but clean, with an old tube TV across from the bed. I looked at the clock.

“Always forward, never back.” I quoted a TV show I liked. I was truly alone now – but I was ready to begin.

Starting with finding the answer to the Professor’s vexing question about my jacket’s mysteriously disappearing bullet holes.

Here we go, I thought.

So I sat on the threadbare bedspread in my small rented room and tried to figure it out.

Observation #1: I had been shot dead many times over the past several days.
Observation #2: The bullets not only made a mess of my body, but of my clothing, including my jacket.
Observation #3: When I re-incorporated, not only did I get a hale and healthy body with no injuries, but as the Professor so helpfully pointed out, my apparel was also returned to an unblemished condition.

Question: How did my “resurrection” ability work, that it not only put me in a healthy body, but mended my clothes as well?

It was, quite frankly, bizarre to me. So I broke it down further.

When I die, just like everyone else, my soul leaves my body, I mused. However, unlike anyone else, my soul does not immediately fall apart with nothing to contain it. Instead it simply floats around, under my control.

So far, so good. I continued.

At any time I wish, I can will myself back into a body, and when I do two things happen at once: I’m back inside a body that’s not injured, along with any clothing or items I had on my body when I died, while at the exact same time, my corpse and whatever was on it or from it vanishes – even including blood spatter. All gone.

I guess, now that I thought about it, the body I entered wasn’t my old body, but a brand new reconstruction of my body, perhaps using the ingredients of the old.

Then I had one of my inspirations, a eureka moment: When the Miami Mob shot me, I exited my body pretty quickly – but not before I was able to feel a moment of pain from my wounds. This had to mean that my body was wounded, but not yet dead, before I exited my body, killing it.

And yet when I reincorporated, there were no wounds on my rebuilt body.

My power was not rebuilding my body as it was when I died, but seconds previous to that moment.

My power rebuilt a past version of my body!

That’s was why my jacket was lacking bullet holes – my power instinctively rebuilt the version of it before it was shot!

But if I could rebuild a version of my body from seconds before I died, maybe… I dropped my body, took a breath, and popped back in.

Into my 20 year-old-self.

I ran into the bathroom, and witnessed myself from thirty years ago, staring back at me in the grimy mirror.

Holy crap. And if I could do it to myself, I could do it to other people too, I was sure.

I could do more than kill, I was a living fountain of youth!!

The Arbiter of not just death, Life and Death.

Because it was so weird being in my young body, I killed myself off again and jumped back into my fifty year old self.

I wonder if this was why I was losing weight dramatically? No more diets needed for me!

I had another idea, but this test would require some more apparel, and I wasn’t keen on either leaving my briefcase full of money here, nor attracting attention walking all around with it. The money inside was in banded stacks of a hundred, all twenty-dollar bills. Each stack was therefore $2,000, and I had 25 stacks in the case. (Well, I had spent most of one stack, so 24 stacks left.)

I took those 24 stacks out of the case, and put them under the mattress, then hugging the now empty case to me I astralled to a nearby grocery store, taking care not to be seen as I bodied back up. After chucking the empty case into a nearby river and watching it sink, I went into the store and bought some snacks  – and while I was peckish, it was the paper bag I was after.

Clutching the bag and snacks to myself, I popped back to my room, put the snacks on the small, sad, bedside table, and pulled the stacks of twenties back out and put them in the paper bag.

I spent the better part of the next hour visiting several different banks, asking each one to turn five of my stacks of twenties into a single stack of hundreds. When I was done, I looked for and found a new hooded jacket with several interior pouches; I also picked up a money belt. Astralling back to my room, I took my newly consolidated cash and squirreled it away on my person.

Now for the experiment! I put on my old jacket, and tore a big rip in it. After another drop and pop – drop dead, and then re-pop back into a new body, that is – I was wearing the unripped jacket again.

I had confirmed it – I could restore anything or anyone – provided, if a thing, that it was wholly not more than four to six inches from a remade body.

How incredibly fascinating!

I checked the clock, and I still had forty-five minutes before I was due to meet H again. And then I had another thought, an idea – would it be possible to turn back the clock on some things in my body but not others? To, for example, get back the even longer hair I had in my thirties while keeping my fifty-year-old body?

I dropped and popped again. My body stayed the same age. My hair went down to almost the small of my back.

I even tried another pop and drop to see if I could simply will myself to have the body I envisioned instead of one I had once had – I tried to make myself five inches taller. That didn’t work. I could seemingly only rebuild and restore a past reality.

And it suddenly dawned on me what I could now do. I popped and dropped one final time and ran into the bathroom.

I almost wept with relief.

Every tooth was back where it should be.

Now for the surprising intersection of the Arbiter and “white trash”! I kind of don’t want to talk about it, but it’s a part of my story, so here goes.

Deep breath.

Remember the “one other significant appearance issue which I will speak of another time”?

This is that time.

I’ve spoken of how poor my family was growing up. One thing I don’t recall from those days is an emphasis on dental hygiene. I don’t think as kids we were ever taken to the dentist – at least I don’t ever remember it. I don’t even remember being made to brush my teeth, like, at all.

Even so, my dental issues didn’t really start until my mid-20s. At the time, I was working as banquet set-up for a local hotel – my job was to set up all the tables, chairs, and more for each event, then break it all down after. The pay didn’t break the bank.

I started to find cavities, and things went downhill quickly from there. Tooth by tooth, over the next few years, the cavities spread, dental cracks developed, fragments broke off. Piece by piece, I lost my teeth.

I feel so ashamed for my ignorance of the time. I want to scream at my younger self, “Do whatever it takes! Go to the dentist! Find a way to pay for it! Ask for help!”

But my younger self merely endured. There was a lot of dental pain, of course. I took to sucking on ice cubes to numb it. Maybe if I had been taught the value of dental hygiene from the start, I would have seen this for the calamity is was, instead of just trying to tough it out. Not that toughing it out was easy. I spent at least one night writhing on the floor of my little cheap bungalow in pain, wishing I was dead. But I got through it.

At one point, my mom became aware of my issues and offered to pay for some dental visits, and though I took her up on it, it was far too late. Most of my teeth were too far gone to save. The dentist extracted the remaining broken ones, leaving me with only six teeth left, all clustered in the lower front – my four lower front teeth, and the incisors on each side.

It made surprisingly little practical difference. I was able to adjust my speaking to still pronounce my t’s and d’s with my tongue against my upper palette instead of my missing top front teeth. I couldn’t eat tough, hard, or chewy food, but then again, I never had. I adjusted and accommodated.

But I learned not to smile – only grin. And I felt, I knew, that I was somehow now a lesser person – a man without teeth. All the comedians jokes about the subject showed me that. I had irrevocably been placed into the designation of “white trash” by society.

At one point I did of course explore dentures, but as luck would have it, I have a sensitive gag reflex that wouldn’t tolerate making the mouth cast, let alone wearing dentures. And implants, which would have been ideal, were priced way out of reach, even after I started working tech.

A few month before I became a Quantum, I went from six teeth to five and a half. That’s right, I lost half of one of my incisors in one unlucky bite.

Maybe I should blame myself, society certainly does. But I was caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of receiving no modeling or guidance on the subject growing up (likely due to our poverty) and then as an adult not understanding how critical dental care is  – combined with no financial ability to provide it for myself anyways.

When you think of it, this is a real, living example of how a society’s bullshit fantasies have horrible consequences. I think it was John Steinback who said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

Idiots.

Of course it was the wealthy and their GOP pets who spread that lie, “Don’t tax the rich, because you won’t want to pay those taxes when it’s your turn!”

But it’s never our turn.

Had I been born into any other civilized country, I would have gotten the dental care I needed, regardless of my ability to pay. But in America, it’s every person for themselves, and fuck you, I’ve got mine, and don’t you dare take any of mine to help the unfortunate! If someone is poor, they obviously are either lazy or stupid, and don’t deserve to be taken care of.

The one-percenters are often vile, but worse are the deplorable half of the 99% who enable the greedy rich to victimize them, by voting for the 1%’s political pets over and over. They even elected the clearly unfit Dominic King as president.

If anyone deserves to be vilified by society, it’s the poor conservatives victimizing not just themselves but the rest of us with their inability to see bullshit for what it is.

If you want to know why the Arbiter gave up on democracy, now you know.

But prior to all this Quantum stuff, I was just a guy in America struggling to get by, with a core need for emotional and physical intimacy.

And a mouth that was the final absolute guarantee that I would never be permitted to fill that need.

They say that having a gun in the household increases the odds of suicide dramatically. I know that’s true, because on more than one occasion if I could have simply given up by pulling a trigger, I know I would have.

Before all this Quantum stuff, I’d flirted with the idea of suicide on and off over the years. Usually my misery was just shy of being enough to conquer my fear of death.

But occasionally the misery dipped lower and my pain rose higher and, for just a few minutes, I was actually ready to say, fuck it.

Add a gun to the equation, and I’m just not here on this planet anymore. But without the gun, the minutes pass and my mood changes just enough to not want to die.

It’s a good thing that there is no god, because if there was a god with a plan who made me need and crave the companionship I was denied, then I would have to focus my Arbiter powers on it. (Or him or her, as you prefer.)

I thank my powers for many things, not the least of which is the ability to make a difference in the world, but one of the greatest gifts they have given me – apart from immortality – is my teeth back.

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.

I astralled to our meeting place, but H was already there. As I popped back in, H’s only sign of surprise was the sudden widening of his eyes – mentally I praised his professionalism.

“A.” he greeted me. I wondered if he would always call me by the first letter of my nom de guerre.

“H. What do you have for me?” I said more quickly and crisply than I intended. Inside I remained furious at Boynton’s assassination.

H looked at me for a moment, then he came to a decision. “Not as much as you might like, but a lot more than you had. There’s a grey ops group of some kind that operates out of a building at 3101 Cathedral Ave, right here in DC. My sources say you might find Archangel there. So what are you going to do, walk into the place, announce yourself, and demand the truth?”

I laughed. “I think I’ll get further by astralling over there and invisibly spying on what they’re up to.”

H cocked his head to the side. “You can do that? Watch and listen to anyone? Can you be detected?”

“Unless someone can detect souls themselves, no.” I answered.

H paused thoughtfully, then nodded.

“You were right, of course.” I added “About people watching my house. They seemed all ‘grey ops’, probably the same organization. I booked it out of there, leaving everything behind. Don’t suppose you could set me up with a new ID?”

H again paused a moment before answering, “Possibly. Do you think the information I found for you has value? If so, as per our agreement, I think this is the time for my questions.”

“Certainly – as I recall, you said they would not be questions about my powers, but questions about my ‘character and intentions’, I think you put it. Please, ask them.”

This time H did not hesitate. “Will you kill Archangel when you find him? Is that your method, to find those you deem worthy of death, and then deliver it?”

I wanted to honor my part of our deal properly, so I didn’t answer immediately, trying to be as sure as I could about my answer before I gave it. “I guess the first thing I should say in answer to any questions on these topics is that I’ve only had seven days to confront such things. I’m still very much figuring out what kind of Quantum I want to be. So any answers I give today are likely to be a work in progress, just to be clear and honest.”

H nodded appreciatively.

I went on, “I don’t know what I will do when I confront Archangel. I think I will tend to figure these things out case-by-case. But what you really want to know, I think, is just how murder-happy I am. The truth is, I’m not. I don’t like that fact that I’ve killed people. Even the assassin I killed, doesn’t make me happy. Well, that’s not exactly true, I do feel a certain grim satisfaction in turning the tables on him. But the thought that I ended his life still kind of gives me the willies.

“Listen, as it so happens I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to investigate and understand stuff like morality, and as far as I can see, there are two base categories: those who try to be virtuous people and follow a moral code, and those who judge morality by the results of their choices. I call this the “be good or do good” choice.

“I would much rather do good for others than pursue being called a good man. Others can vilify me for doing terrible things, but if those terrible things make the world a better place – and if, to the best of my knowledge, a less terrible thing would not have been enough – then I will make that choice and figure out how to live with myself later.”

Having paid close attention to me throughout, H now asked, “So your motivation is selfless? Your goal is to make the world a better place? For all?”

“I don’t believe that anyone’s motivation is ever selfless,” I answered, “even so-called altruists do what they do for self-motivated reasons, like to be loved by others, or because helping others makes them feel good, or because they are simply driven to be the kind of person who helps others and supporting that self-image is a top priority for them. There are many reasons to do good things, but none of them are selfless – selflessness doesn’t exist, no matter how ‘good’ you are.”

“Thank you professor” laughed H, but not unkindly.

I grinned back at him. “So I do think about these things – I always have. There’s this other quote I really like, which I will probably mangle, something like this: ‘When bad things happen, if you haven’t done your best to prevent them, it’s on you.’  I think that’s it, more or less. I hit the jackpot of jackpots with my powers. But what’s the point in me even having them if I don’t use them to make things better?”

“I caught your GWB action earlier.” replied H, “Is that how you are going to make things better, rescuing people in peril?”

I shook my head. “Whenever I can do something like that, that’s great, but what I really want to do is fight all the injustices of the world. There no reason that life has to be this hard for any of us, and we humans should definitely not be making each other’s lives harder. The whole world is a chamber-pot of pain. People with powers never take on that challenge in fiction – they fight villains, or save people from collapsing bridges,” I smiled, “but never do they go after the system itself. Never do they say, ‘I don’t care what’s popular, I don’t even care what’s legal, but injustice is not acceptable!’ I want to make the world a better, happier place – and I probably think I’m going to have to upset a lot of people to do it.”

H retorted, “Sounds like you’ll be coming into direct conflict with law enforcement, with governments, possible even the democratic will of the people itself.”

“The least harm for the most good – whatever it takes.” I evenly replied.

More softly, H said, “But despite your powers, you are only human. What happens if you make a mistake?”

“I know.” I asserted intensely, “I am going to make mistakes, despite my best efforts, and they will probably be utterly tragic ones. But far more tragic would be to do nothing.”

“So your goal is to take over and rule the planet then? You’re in charge?” H said this so matter-of-factly it sent chills down my spine, but I held firm.

“That is far from my goal, but if that’s what it takes to achieve my real goal, I’ll do it.” was my comeback. And in that moment, I realized that it was true. Then the enormity of what I had just said I would be willing to take on if necessary hit me.

I looked down at my feet and took a deep breath, then another. “I’m in way over my head, but I meant what I said. I’m not backing down. It’s up to me. I had better take this as slow as I can. And I’m going to need guidance and advice.” I looked back up at H. “Want a job?” It was only after I asked that I discovered I wasn’t really joking.

“Sure, what’s it pay?”

“Umm, nothing to start, with a 5 percent raise every year.” I offered. I knew H would get the jest.

“It’s a good thing you’re not the only one who likes to make decisions based on the kind of person you want to be. If I’m on the team, I have three pieces of starting advice: first, as you said, we need to get you a new, clean ID. Second, we need to round out the team with a few more people we can absolutely trust who can bring diverse expertise and perspectives. Third, once we have a good starting line-up, we should meet and come up with at least a rough outline of what we’re going to do.”

“You’re not at all kidding, are you?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Well… how about Professor Lund for the team?”

H nodded. “If you’ll permit, let me think about him for a bit, but I think that could work very well.”

“Oh, H?” I said. “I should probably make clear right from the start that the whole reason I am doing this is to fight against the injustices I see. I other words, I think the team sounds like a great idea to help me make sure I am not making regrettable mistakes, but I’m not looking for people to vote on what I’m doing, if you get my meaning.”

H chuckled. “I get it, the team works for you, not the other way around. Couldn’t be any other way, A, not really. But you would be best served with any team if you keep them well-informed and then really listen deeply to the advice they have to offer. Then you can make whatever decisions you are so moved to do, with confidence.”

“I couldn’t agree more. So how do I get a new ID?”

“Let me set that up, meet back here in 24 hours?” H asked.

“Done and done. Now I have some spying to do.”

“Good hunting, A.” H nodded farewell, and I astralled back to my room.

Time to find Archangel – and stop any more Quantum assassinations!

Finding 3101 Cathedral Avenue wasn’t as easy as if I still had a working smartphone with gps and google maps, but with the help of a purchased old-school map of DC and some people pointing the way, I eventually got there. When I arrived I slowed down a bit – but not enough (I hoped) to attract attention – and paid close attention to the building as I walked past. It was a 40′ by 60′ three-story brick building on a corner lot, nestled in between a handful of trees, with a brick stair and walkway leading up to its porch. I continued on by, trying to seem unremarkable. When I was far enough away, I turned into an alley and astralled back to my rented room. Wearing my full set of gear I teleported back to the building for some astral snooping.

The first thing I noticed inside the front door was the surprising lack of any guards or security, although the receptionist looked more than formidable. Instead what I found were cubicles and offices, the whole place a hive of activity. I could hear various conversations, printers, phones ringing and people answering – all the normal sounds of a busy office.

I walked (floated) around, eavesdropping on conversations, looking over people’s shoulders, trying to get a sense of the place. One nearby cubicle had an unkempt heavy-set man in his fifties in a rumpled shirt and tie, picking up a ringing phone. “Mayfair zero,” he said, “Validation code?”

He paused, listening, and tapped a few keys on his keyboard to bring up a spreadsheet of what seemed to me to be random words, letters, and numbers. Placing his finger on the screen on the left side of the row, he traced rightward and read the contents of one of the cells over the phone, “Foxtrot nine seven Echo Zulu Mike India three four Delta.” He hung up the phone.

It seemed that everyone was answering their phones, “Mayfair zero”. I wondered if Mayfair was the name of the building – or the organization?

I continued to pass invisibly among them, unable to make heads or tails of the coded conversations I was hearing. Most of the computer screens had sheets of these codes up; a few had maps of places I didn’t recognize. I floated up through the ceiling to the second floor and continued poking around until I came across a screen with a map I did recognize: my home county in New Hampshire. I froze.

The man at this desk was foreign looking to me, and he spoke into the phone in a language I did not understand. After watching him make and receive a few phone calls all in the same language, I decided not to wait any longer. I leapt into rapid action.

I grabbed his soul, teleported us to the first hideaway place that came to mind (the bathroom stall near the Washington Monument), re-embodied him to remove his body from Mayfair, and yanked him right back out of his body so no one could eavesdrop on our astral conversation.

The man was stunned speechless, jaw slack. He looked at his body, now sprawled at the bottom of the stall, and then at his hands, front and back. He looked up, and was shocked to see me. He remained silent, stunned again.

“Do you speak any English?” I asked.

He shook his head and spoke to me, somewhat dreamily, “No, I do not – though I do speak several languages: Russian, German, French, and of course Farsi.”

“Wait, what?” I was confused.

“I said I don’t speak English.” he replied, starting to really look at me and take me in. His body language spoke of great caution.

“But you’re speaking English to me now.” I pointed out.

Now he looked confused. “No I’m not.” he said, “I’m speaking Farsi, of course, my native language.”

What??

I held up my hand to him, palm outward, in the universal signal for “stop”. I took a deep astral breath.

“And you don’t even know English?” I asked. He shook his head.

“What language am I speaking then?” I asked. “Farsi.” he replied.

A few more moments of silence passed as I considered what the hell was happening – I most certainly did not speak Farsi!

I thought about it. Maybe something about being in astral form enables people to hear other languages as if spoken in their native tongue? Or – wait a minute! What if we weren’t speaking either Farsi or English? Maybe it was our souls speaking to each other, in some sort of soulspeak language?

That sounded about right to me. Cool. I took another breath and un-tensed.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“What’s yours?” he replied in a moderately challenging tone.

I smiled at him, though he could not see that under the astral version of my facemask. “The Arbiter.” I answered.

His fists clenched, in obvious fear, not anger. His eyes were wide and he looked like he expected to die at any moment. I could almost see him mentally offering a prayer to the god of his choice.

“Would you rather know an upsetting truth, or be left to believe a comfortable falsehood?” I asked offhandedly.

He visibly steeled himself and answered, “The truth.”

“OK, well here it is, if you believe in an afterlife, you’re gong to be disappointed. When souls leave bodies – and I don’t sustain them with my ability – they don’t vanish or fly off, they fall apart right in front of your eyes. This life is all we have. Sorry.”

That shook him. I could see a denial leap to his lips but be discarded before it could be spoken – he could tell I was being honest with him. Apparently when he said he preferred the unpleasant truth over all else, he himself had been speaking true.

“OK, let’s get down to business.” I said after giving him a few moments to think. “What is Mayfair?”

Defeated, he answered, “A clandestine government-supported independent and off-books organization formed to deal with threats that require such a response. Since Stonefall we’ve been greatly expanded and tasked to deal with the threat of Quantums.”

“Did you know that Mayfair has been killing Quantums, even those with no history of violence or other misdeeds?”

He glumly nodded.

“Why would you support that?” I asked.

This time it was he that took the deep breath as he replied, “If Quantums continue to exist it will disrupt the very fabric of all societies on the planet, leaving us with a completely uncertain future. We have to put the genie back in the bottle before it’s too late.”

I scoffed, “Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s already too late, for at least two reasons. First, because I have found and will publicly expose Mayfair, and second, because no one can kill or stop me, so at least one Quantum is going to be around for a very long time.”

He nodded again. “Will you make my death painful, in revenge? Or will it be quick?”

“Have you killed any Quantums yourself?” I asked. He shook his head. “Then I am going to give you a second chance. Here’s the deal: as of now, you no longer work for or report to Mayfair. If I find out differently I will kill you, and there is no hiding from that, as the Miami mob discovered. Try to be a good man and live a good life, with no more killing innocent people, no matter if they’re Quantums or not. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

“Then go.” I said, and popped him back into his body, making his old one vanish as per usual.

He looked startled, and looked around – but of course he could no longer see me. Gathering his wits, he spoke into the air – but this time I couldn’t understand him. Interesting. His words didn’t sound hostile, though.

I followed him a bit just to make sure he didn’t return to work or call them, but he just took mass transit back to his apartment, packed quickly, and boarded a bus leaving DC.

Now it was time to confront his boss. Bring on Archangel!

I zipped back to the Mayfair building, searching for the person in charge. On the third floor I found a broad corridor with a few small offices on either side. At the end was a large formal door with equally formal lettering reading “Michael Saxon-Waite”, and underneath, “DIRECTOR”.

I paused. If this was indeed Archangel, was I here to kill him? He certainly deserved it. But was I ready to become an executioner? I was still not sure. It didn’t feel right.

Either way, it was time to find out. I astralled through the door.

It was a posh, medium-sized office, very upper-class and sophisticated. The only occupant was seated at the large mahogany desk, going over paperwork. He was a slender and distinguished looking man in his early fifties, with short dark hair, greying at his temples. He looked like he would not be out-of-place in a Bond movie – either as hero or villain.

I took my body before him.

His head snapped up, clear, focused, alert. He slapped something underneath his desk. I sighed and waited for something or someone to attack me.

Instead I heard some heavy sounds as things unseen “thunked” into place, and the large screen behind him which had been dark was now lit by an image of the two of us from a camera somewhere in the room.

“Archangel, I presume?” I asked.

He stood and gave a small bow. “And you must be the Arbiter,” he replied. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Then you know why I’m here.”

“You’re here to take revenge and kill me; could you not simply do it from remote like your other murders?”

“Not sure, didn’t try. And I haven’t made up my mind about what I’m going to do with you yet. What did you just activate?”

Archangel – for that is how I named him – smiled. “Several things. The room has now been locked down on a twenty-minute timer, including both an energy barrier and a Faraday cage. You may not be able to leave as easily as you think. Also, a summons has gone out to the local authorities to be ready to enter the room when it unlocks to take you into custody, if possible. Finally, a broadcast of our conversation” he gestured to the screen behind him, “has started streaming live to the internet, and it cannot be disabled or shut down. Everything you do and say now is being witnessed live by the world. Today, the world will find out whether the Arbiter is a murderer – or if he is all bark and no bite. Welcome to the end of your career, one way or the other.”

I nodded. “An interesting gambit. I am curious about whether your technology can hold me in, but I’m not yet ready to leave, so let’s forget about that for now. If the world really is watching, then you will probably not admit to murdering innocent Quantums, I’m guessing.”

He smiled again, standing completely at ease. “Quite the opposite, dear chap, I’m proud to have freed humanity from as many of your kind as possible, and if I cannot continue my work after today, I trust that others will.”

“So you admit to having the Quantum Jack Boynton assassinated?”

“Certainly, him and twenty-one others. We would have gotten you as well, but for your particular ability. But mark my words, Quantums are no longer human beings, they are – you are perversions of the natural order. You make a mockery of it, and if we don’t stop you and your kind, you will destroy or enslave us all.”

I was coldly furious, but maintained my outward composure. “Jack Boynton would never hurt anyone.” I said flatly. “He used his powers to help people vacation, you moron!”

Still unperturbed, still smiling, Archangel replied, “Names? I had hoped for a more… cultured adversary, but we deal with what we get. His powers had applications far beyond mere vacations. With Mr. Boynton’s abilities he could seize control of anyone’s reality and have them experience anything for as long as he liked, all in an instant. He could subject them to god-knows-what, and break anyone – or bring them back stark raving mad. No one should have such abilities! And now, no one does.”

Archangel looked me over. “So, what will it be, dear chap? Will you lift me up as a martyr to the cause, murdering me in front of the world? Or will you flee, tail between your legs, demonstrating to all that despite having the powers of life and death, you are not willing to use them in your cause? Either will serve my cause well. You have at most fourteen minutes to decide.”

“Will you answer some questions honestly?” I asked, trying not to let myself be goaded by him.

“I have nothing left to hide.” Archangel replied as he moved from behind his desk to a drink cabinet and began to pour. “Can I offer you a sherry?”

“Actually, I don’t drink alcohol, I generally don’t enjoy the taste.” I said.

“Really? How strange! Mind if I take my seat?” he asked.

“Actually, sit there.” I said, pointing to one of the chairs in front of the desk, as I walked around and took the large commanding chair behind it.

It only made Archangel even more pleased with himself. “Very well!” he assented, and sat.

There was a brief pause as we regarded each other, which I broke. “Archangel – you don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

“Ah, a tactic to dehumanize me in front of our viewers! No, you can call me that, it is indeed one of my many names and titles, such as my Purple Heart or Medal of Honor – or you could call me ‘Vice Admiral’, also from my Navy service. If I was still operating out of the Department of Homeland Security, you could have called me ‘the Deputy Secretary of the DHS’, although now my official title is ‘Director Saxon-Waite of the Mayfair Group’, an independent consulting agency working with the DHS. Of course my two children just call me ‘Daddy’ and my wife calls me ‘Michael’, but those are probably a tad informal given that you are weighing whether or not to kill me for defending humanity against your kind.” He leaned back, his sherry in his hand, and regarded me with amusement.

I replied coolly. “No, a tactic to keep reminding myself that despite all the other things you just said, you happily murdered an American citizen on American soil who had not yet done anything to even remotely warrant it.”

“He would have. You said you had questions? We have nine minutes left until law enforcement, who I can only imagine is already waiting on the other side of that door”, he gestured with his drink, “come in and take us both into custody – if I am still alive then.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall so I would know when to expect company. “Since time is short, just one: if I was willing to permit you to live today, would you make a promise and swear to me that you will never harm Quantums who have themselves harmed no one?”

This time Archangel laughed outright. “Bravo, Arbiter. Now if I die, it will be because I did not take your deal. But before I say whether I will or not, I have a few things to say.”

I interrupted him, “If those doors open before you accept my deal, your time will have run out.”

“Then I shall be quick.” he replied. “You see, there are some things that the world does not know that it deserves to know.”

“If you reveal my identity or put anyone I care about in danger, you’re signing your immediate death warrant.” I warned him.

“That’s not what I intend to say, though it’s fascinating how comfortable you feel using your Quantum powers to get your way – not surprising, more expected – just like Jack Boynton would have, if we had given him the time.”

“Jack was a very different man than I.” I stared at him. “And your time is still running out.”

Archangel for the first time dropped his smile. “Then let me come right to the point of the matter. There are Quantums out there the public does not know about. A genius serial killer who calls himself Sunyata, for example, who was spotted at the George Washington Bridge just moments before it suffered a complete catastrophic failure. Another Quantum whose name is unknown is traveling across the country as we speak, charming people out of their possessions and taking advantage of his powers of persuasion to rape any attractive woman he finds. There’s the California Quantum who broke herself and her four inmate friends out of maximum security prison and is currently at large, whereabouts unknown. Of course, let’s not forget about Kiza Kazadi who has deposed the official government of the Congo, turning it into his private kingdom, I shudder to think what is going on there right now. I would go on to name more, but we haven’t the time.

“You ask me to swear to you that I won’t harm Quantums? Why don’t you instead swear to me that you will work for this agency to put an end to these people?” Archangel leaned back in his upholstered chair, apparently finished.

I leveled a serious gaze at him across his desk. “I will indeed work with you to stop any Quantum that does evil – if you first swear that you will not harm any Quantum that does not. But you must promise me that your activities of harming Quantums before they have earned it are over, and you must do so right now. Otherwise I cannot permit you to continue to be a threat to those who don’t deserve it.”

“I am not saying it is their fault,” replied Archangel softly, “but anyone with the powers of a Quantum will eventually use them on humans evilly. Power corrupts. Quantum powers corrupt absolutely.” He stood then, continuing “I will not subject myself to any oaths to you, sir; you haven’t earned the right to my oath. You are just a powerful bully trying to compel me to obey you, and you have failed in that. We now have only a minute or two left. What will you do? Murder me or slink away?”

I also stood. My next actions would be a turning point for me, and likely much more than just me, and I knew it. Time was running out. If I made him a martyr, in front of our live audience, that would set off a serious and unstoppable chain of events that I couldn’t predict. But if I left Archangel alive to do as he wished, not only was I leaving all innocent Quantums in extreme danger, but I could never again expect any person to take my threats seriously.

It again came down to the same question as before: how far would I go to make things better? If doing good required that I do evil things, was I willing?

I had to decide, right then, not just about Archangel in the moment, but if I would embrace using whatever dark act that was necessary, from that point on. For as terrible as killing Archangel in cold blood might be, it would be a thousand times worse to kill him and give up later. And I knew he knew that I would realize this – that my decision would be about not just him, but about the rest of my days.

Time was almost up. I took a deep breath and spoke, not to Archangel, but to the world.

“You are being asked to judge this man, and you are being asked to judge me. I suspect that he accepts your judgment, and so do I – but that won’t change anything.

“When I say something, I mean it. That’s why Michael Saxon-Waite must now die.”

Archangel’s eyes widened slightly, as though he hadn’t really expected me to go through with it, but he squared his shoulders.

In the next instant his soul was ejected from his body, decohering and falling apart almost instantly. His corpse fell, uninhabited.

I turned back to the camera. “People can disagree about ethics and morality, and about what constitutes Justice, but the ones with the most power usually get their way. I think right now that is me. You can disagree with me, and I will not harm a hair on your head. You can debate me, and I will converse with you and try to understand your positions – if you give me the same courtesy. But never, ever, disobey me. Because I will use the gift I have been given to make the world a better place, even if that means without you in it.”

I paused, about to say more, when the doors at that moment thunked, then opened quickly. A SWAT team entered the room and I turned to them to greet them, but was cut off by the bullets they fired into me.

The pain tempted me to teach humanity another lesson, but I let it go, zipping back to my room and retaking my body.

And with all we had said and done spreading like wildfire across the internet, chaos erupted around the globe.

I had become a murderer.

One could probably argue that my first kill, the assassin who was trying to kill me, was self-defense. Taking out the Miami mobsters that were trying to kill me in that warehouse probably was not self-defense, for at that point I was well-aware of and quite comfortable with my immortality, but on the other hand I could call it an instinctive reaction to those who meant me and those close to me immediate harm. My subsequent elimination of much of the rest of that mob world-wide wasn’t even intentional – that was the moment I learned I even had that ability. And, of course, killing myself, Joyce, Gabriella, all the people on the bridge, and the Mayfair employee didn’t count as we all came back.

But killing Michael was different. Very different.

I chose to kill him, deliberately – I could not argue that my self-control had snapped.

One could reasonably argue that while the man had done terrible things, his ability to continue to do them was already at an end, having been publicly outed. Oh, I could pretend that I killed him to make sure he could never again harm anyone else, but I had to admit that the likely scenario if I hadn’t killed him was that he would have been taken into custody, charged with crimes, and probably sent to jail for a very long time. When I entered his office, he knew his time as a free citizen was over, I’m sure.

There were two reasons why I had to murder Michael, and two reasons alone.

I demanded a promise from him that no matter what, he wouldn’t make the same choices again. Why did I make that demand, since I already knew that if I let him live he would spend most of the rest of his life in jail unable to hurt anyone?

Because I wanted him to change. I demanded it. My requirement for those who have done evil was that they convince me that they were abandoning in their heart those ways. And that is why he wouldn’t give in. My demand of Archangel – Michael – was that he live as the kind of person I wanted him to be, regardless of his beliefs, which I found repugnant.

When he called me a bully, he was not wrong. I threatened to murder him for not agreeing to behave the way I demanded, and when he refused to comply, I made good on my threat. That’s the truth.

And there’s another reason I chose to murder this man.

I was committed to making the world a better place, and in order to do that sooner or later I was going to have to coerce and influence a planetful of people. If they saw I was too hesitant or squeamish to hold people accountable for disobedience, then more people would defy me – and then I would have to kill them too.

That’s why it was all or nothing. If I wasn’t willing to see this through all the way, if I wasn’t willing to embrace completely my capacity to dictate to humanity what they were and were not allowed to do, then I shouldn’t try to do it at all – I should instead “retire” and stop getting involved, letting the planet continue to do what it was doing.

But if I was going to become the Arbiter of Life and Death utterly and for real, telling people what they must and must not do, then anything I did that emboldened more people to resist me would mean eventually ending more lives.

I had an ongoing responsibility to never make choices that would in the short-term save some lives, but in the long-term cost so many more.

Murdering Michael made a clear point and, I was pretty sure, would prevent me having to make the same point as many times as I would have needed to if I had let him live.

As the Arbiter, I had to punish defiance of my orders with swift death. Doing anything else meant murdering a lot more people later – or giving up completely and making all the murders I had already done pointless.

So I was a cold-blooded killer who had chosen thoughtfully to end a harmless man’s life because he defied me, and because I needed to make a clear example of him.

I was a murderer.

Sigh.

I can imagine a hypothetical interviewer going for the jugular: “I understand how murdering this man was in line with your goals, but it’s just wrong. What gives you the right to electively kill anyone? Or do you not believe in right and wrong, sir?”

Well, that’s what an interviewer would have asked me if I hadn’t just finished scaring the world shitless. And it’s a valid question that I am obligated to answer.

There are two things I have known for a very long time, long before getting powers. The first is the truth about morality and right and wrong.

Figuring out what you believe is right or wrong is simple: what choices, especially made by others, disquiet you? Or upset you? Or outrage you? These demonstrate your beliefs of what is moral and what is not.

Morality serves two related purposes; it guides us in making our decisions, and more frequently it is invoked when we wish others to modify their behavior. Morality is expressed as an untethered ought. (A tethered ought is like the sentence “If you want to have more money, you ought to either spend less or get more, or both.” This sentence is not an opinion but a fact, since the “ought” is tethered to the if-clause. However, saying that “You ought to spend less money or get more money or both” with no if-clause is an untethered ought and is an opinion, not a fact.)

So if I express a statement of morality like “one ought to always tell the truth”, this statement has two uses – to be employed by myself to guide my own actions, or it can directed at others to attempt to influence theirs. Pushing one’s moral position on oneself is not going to be resisted for obvious reasons, but pushing it on others may very well be.

Which is why we have the central moral question: are there any (untethered) morals that one can prove that others ought to follow, whether they want to or not?

But the source of all morality is how we feel about things. If someone throwing litter from their car window outrages us, that becomes a part of our morality – but without the litterbug sharing the same sentiment (which they obviously do not) there is simply no way to convince them that not littering is their moral duty.

So yes, all morality is made up – but does this mean that our morals don’t matter?

All morality is made up. So therefore, do our morals not matter?

Hardly. Our feelings about moral obligation are one of the central experiences of being human. The only question is how deep does one’s moral conviction go?

For example, let say the citizens of a town get together to address the town’s needs, and come up with a list of things for the town: a school, better roads, a fully funded fire department, and so on. The overall proposal comes with a price tag. the citizens gather and vote; if the vote passes two things will occur: a one-time property tax of 10% will be levied against all citizens with a property valued at over $500,000, and the approved projects will begin when the tax is collected to fund them.

The measure passes overwhelmingly with 92% of the vote and goes into place. Tax bills are immediately sent out. But just as immediately, the dozen richest property owners say that they voted against the bill and decline to pay this tax, as they feel no moral obligation to fund the proposed goals which they personally will not benefit from. On top of that they also dispute the right of the citizens of this town to vote to involuntarily confiscate their property or money. These rich folks say it is fine to ask them for donations, which they may or may not give, but the other citizens of the town have no right to compel them to fund anything, no matter how many people vote to do so.

The citizens of the town and these 12 rich families disagree about the obligations to the town and its needs. At the end of the day, a practical question must be answered: is the tax forcibly collected from the dissenters, or not?

And that depends on the strength of one’s moral conviction.

If the townspeople do indeed think that everyone ought to pay their tax to fund these voted goals, but not strongly enough to make the rich pay their share, then all they really have is a moral belief about what people who agree with them should do – and the rich will be permitted to not contribute, and the projects will fail to be funded.

But if the townspeople are so convinced that people ought to pay their fair share that they are willing to make them pay, even if they disagree and decline, then their moral conviction is about all people, whether those people agree or not.

In a sense, this is the fundamental law of morality: a moral conviction is an ought that is so strongly held that one is willing to use force as needed to make even those who don’t agree submit to it.

So there is no universal morality, since morality comes from what we feel, and that is individual – but having a morality is universal, since we all have these feelings. And the morals that really matter are our convictions, which are the things we feel so strongly about we are willing to compel (if we can) others to follow them even if they disagree.

Power, in other words, doesn’t make one person’s morality more correct than another’s – since all morality is equally correct – but power does make one’s morality more enforceable. So those who wish to see their moral convictions acquiesced to will naturally be concerned with having enough power to compel obedience. Having a conviction that innocent people shouldn’t be assaulted is useless without the power to compel those who disagree to desist.

And at this point in my life this was not hypothetical.

Which raised the next question for me. As I had told H, I firmly believe that when bad things happen, if one hasn’t done one’s best to prevent them, it’s on them. So the more power one has, the more responsibility one has to compel people to follow one’s own moral convictions.

But there’s a catch. Let’s say that one has the moral conviction that killing people is wrong. Let’s also say that in a certain situation a man is going to kill ten others – and the only way to stop him is to kill him.

There are two equally valid ways to handle the situation:

• Killing people is wrong. Therefore I am not allowed to kill. So if the only way to stop this man is to kill him, I ought not to stop him, even though that means he will kill ten others.
• Killing people is wrong. Ten people being killed is worse than one person being killed. So if I have the option of deciding which happens, I ought to choose the outcome where fewer people are killed, even if I have to kill one man to do it.

People who embrace the first are focused on virtue over outcomes – on being good no matter the cost. People who embrace the second are focused on outcomes over virtue – on doing good, no matter the cost.

Another name for basing one’s choice on comparing likely outcomes is pragmatism.

Virtue-based choices are the best for making you feel great about who you are, but the worst at creating a world where life is fairer than the alternative.

Pragmatism-based choices can sometimes leave you feeling bad, but they are the best at creating a fairer and more just world.

I always choose the latter.

So I am a murderer. I have such strong feelings of compassion and moral convictions about justice that I am compelled to use what power I can to make others improve their bad behavior. But I am also a pragmatist, since I believe that what is the most important is not how good or bad I feel about myself, but how much my choices cause life to improve for those who deserve much more fairness and justice that they are given.

Even if I have to do some unjust things by my own hand to create a truckload of justice for others.

And this was just one small drop in the red ocean to come.

What happened over the next several days was a worldwide shitshow. Mayfair was taken down by law enforcement and many of its top members, along with several co-conspirators within the Department of Homeland Security, were charged with crimes and eventually went to jail. The information that Mayfair had collected on Quantums was supposedly sealed, but it was all swiftly leaked to the public anyways – and they really didn’t have much more on living Quantums, as they had already killed all the ones they could.

My identity was never leaked, however – H said he had a conversation with a few people, pointing out how mind-blowingly self-destructive that would be. Apparently my last public appearance had made quite the impression.

I had assumed that the world would be obsessing over me, given what I last did, and I was in the news here and there, people guessing what I would do next, or what I considered justice. A whole lot of people denounced me in the name of freedom – but a not small percentage seemed to think that maybe I could do a lot of good, not in spite of my methodology but because of it.

Government officials, especially American, regularly got questions about what they were going to do about a citizen who had murdered a man live in front of the world, and at first I didn’t notice the pattern, but after the fifth or so time I had to laugh. It always went something like this:

Reporter: “The Arbiter executed Mr Saxon-Waite in front of the world. He obviously is unconcerned about the United States government being able to visit any consequences on him, and he will likely continue unless stopped. How does the US government plan to stop this vigilante, who can’t be killed?”

Official: “Make no mistake, we are a country of laws, and we respect and insist on the rule of law. No one is above the law, no one at all. We are looking into a range of options to bring citizens both Quantum and non together in one cohesive community of hope.”

Reporter: “But what about the Arbiter?”

Official: “I think I’ve answered your question.”

And so on. Officials never mentioned my name, never threatened me directly, never called me to account personally – not Republicans, not Democrats, no one.

I’m not proud of this, but I thought the situation was wildly amusing.

But other things were happening too that crowded me off the hourly news cycle. Many more Quantums were “coming out” – or being outed – with the media bestowing upon them “codenames” if they didn’t choose one for themselves: the Weatherman, the Eel, Black Cross, Cthon, Shattergirl, the Mimic, Presto, Sandman, Water Woman, and Chaotica to name a few. And the public appetite for Quantum information was insatiable.

Quantums became the new celebrities, whether they wanted to or not. People began referring to non-Quantums as Naturals, or “Nats” for short – although as a private joke, some said the “g” in “Nats” had gone from being silent to being invisible.

A few Quantums learned the wrong lesson from me and declared themselves above the law before using their abilities against the “inferior” Nats. However, between the good Quantums like Glory and the not inconsiderate power law enforcement could still bring to bear, so far those few were either dead, in custody, or in the wind.

It was a new time for the world, equally promising and unsettling. Humanity now lived in its own superhero reality show, but where that would lead and how it all would ultimately work out, no one knew. We all, Quantums and Nats alike, knew we were living in a transitionary time – but a transition to what, the world waited to see. In the meanwhile everyone tried to find and adjust to the new normal.

I pretty much laid low, staying out of the limelight for now. H and I did invite Professor Lund to the secret “Advisory Board” we had talked about. We invited Glory too, but she declined by email. I was going to need my Board soon, as lying low was almost over, and I had to figure out what came next. There were all the dangerous Quantums we knew of to be found and dealt with as well as decisions to be made concerning how I wanted to begin making the world a better place, despite the resistance to change and the defiance of autonomy. We had a lot to talk about.

It was the night before our first Board meeting, around a week after I had dispatched Archangel. I stayed mostly in my newly acquired private apartment, watching the news and taking notes for tomorrow’s portentous conversation. I really hadn’t expected such a strangely dressed individual to materialize across from my position on the couch, lounging on my recliner.

He was of medium height with a runner’s physique, dressed in a tight jester’s costume, covered in red and black diamonds, some of which were solid and others which were clusters of four smaller diamonds. He had one black shoe and one red shoe – as well as one red glove and one black glove on opposite sides from the same color shoe.

He wore a Venetian style eye-mask in gold, red, and black, continuing the motif, that left the lower half of his face from his nose down exposed. The top of the mask extended upward in several long semi-triangular red and black points with golden piping, curving back over his head.

He turned his head and looked at me, smiling widely.

“Hi, I’m Domino.” he said in a happy, upbeat tone. “I’ve been looking for you for some time. We’re going to be best friends – I’m your new Jiminy Cricket, you see – your bud! Got any beer?”

And since I couldn’t see his soul, I knew him for a Quantum.

I held my head in my hands and whimpered.

The unknown patient was still staring at the ceiling as Dr Zhang entered the room. She picked up the clipboard hanging from the end of the bed, consulting it for any new information. They had spent the last 24 hours running a battery of tests: X-rays, MRI scans, blood analysis, anything that might give some clue as to the still unknown’s patient’s condition.

But everything came back normal. Nothing unusual in any of scans, which ought to rule out organic cerebral issues, blood chemistry consistent with someone who had been unconscious for a few days, laying in the woods behind the pharmacy where he was found. Pupils continue to be normally responsive, despite the lack of blinking.

“Who are you?” Ellen Zhang asked her John Doe aloud. “What’s your story? You brain is active, very active in fact – like a persistent dream state – but you have no cerebro-energetic reactions to stimuli, so you clearly aren’t aware of the world around you. Your autonomics and associated reactives continue to function – again, apart from your lack of nictitation. Maybe if we could find out who you are we could assess environmental causes, but for now, I’m stumped!”

Dr. Zhang dropped into the chair beside the bed and regarded her patient. There was something about this one, perhaps the way he was found, as if the man was a piece of human trash jettisoned from society. Maybe John Doe himself had come to believe that. Or maybe something else was going on that she couldn’t understand.

It was maddening.

She took a deep breath to relax. She needed more information. With cases like this, someone almost always turned up to identify and claim the John Doe – and once they did, she would be able to send her juniors to investigate the man’s previous environment. Maybe this whole thing would turn out to be caused by some unusual mold spores, somehow. For now, Dr. Zhang told herself, she had to be patient. The man had been there for less than 72 hours, and sometimes it took days or weeks for relatives to notice someone missing and to check the local hospitals. She had to be patient.

Dr. Zhang stood up and walked to the opposite wall, pulling out her cell phone – she might as well order dinner in, as she was going to be working on several new inpatient cases for quite some time yet. “Domino’s?” she said, “I’d like to order a personal pizza and a two liter of Coke.”

A sudden noise from the patient behind her startled her, and she whirled around. The John Doe was saying something, his eyes still focused on some infinity past the ceiling.

Forgetting all about her phone, the doctor dashed to his side, and placed her ear to his mouth to hear better what the man was croaking out.

“…Domino…    …Domino…   …Domino…”

Then the man for the first time closed his eyes and lapsed into silence.

Dr. Zhang hit the alarm to get some orderlies in the room, and began to try anything she could to rouse the patient again, but as a flurry of activity erupted around the John Doe, he was again utterly unresponsive.

They continued their attempts for some time.