Microstory 2299: Panic Attack

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We’re putting the finishing touches on the arrangements for the memorial service tomorrow. It’s going to be a lovely, mostly somber event. But it won’t just be all wails and cursing at the gods. We’ll be playing both of their favorite music; moreso Dutch, since he had more time to develop a taste for what this planet has to offer. I’ll be giving the eulogy, of course, and I’m really nervous about it. I’ve never spoken in front of this many people before. The publicist keeps reminding me that I already have a huge audience, because Nick managed to build one for this blog, and I’ve been posting on it exclusively for days. That’s an interesting way to frame it, and I’m trying to hold onto that. You’ve been listening to me talk for a while now, even before Nick died; it’s just that it’s been through the written word, and now you’re going to hear my real voice, and see my real face. Oh God, I think I’m having a panic attack.

All right, I’m back. That white space between paragraphs is where that panic attack happened, but I’m okay. As a medical professional, I know all the tricks, but it’s one thing to give advice to someone else, and another to follow through when you need it yourself. I closed the lid of my laptop, shut the shades, and turned off all the lights. I sat upright in the hotel bed, and focused on my breathing. Despite the darkness, I could make out enough objects in the room. I could see the television on the opposite wall; the painting hanging over the refrigerator, depicting a frozen ice skating pond with scratches on the surface, but no skaters; the faint outline of the DO NOT DISTURB sign; the luggage I had sprawled out on the other bed; and the half empty glass of water on the nightstand. No, it wasn’t half empty, but half full. I could touch the soft sheets I was sitting upon; my overheated phone that I’ve been meaning to upgrade; the highlighter that I was using while researching eulogy commonalities; and the brass gooseneck reading lamp coming from the wall above the headboard. I could hear the sound of children running in the halls while their mother tried to shush them up; the hum of the furnace; and the ticking of the analog clock by the door to the bathroom. I could smell the half eaten box of cheese crackers on the table in the corner; and something dank that I couldn’t place wafting in through the vents. I could taste the toothpaste in my mouth that I should have more thoroughly rinsed out before I sat down to write this post.

I had to take another break, which is why I’m posting this later than usual. Everything is okay, and I think I’m gonna be okay, but as the memorial approaches, it’s like it’s all happening again. I never talked about it before, and I will probably never publicly go into too much detail, but obviously, I was there when they died. I remember the lurch of the vehicle as we slid on the ice, and finally came to a stop. I remember running out of the car, and one of the security guards holding me back so I couldn’t see the wreckage. I remember seeing the wreckage anyway, and feeling the heat from the flames on my face, which felt like they were going to burn me, yet somehow still could not protect my toes from freezing under the tyranny of the snow as it seeped into my socks. I remember thinking that no one could have survived that fall, even though I was still bleary eyed, and confused. There was no hope, and now these memories are coming back, which will only make the eulogy harder to write, and even harder to give. I need a third break.

Microstory 1973: Team Prime

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Sachs: This one?

Sasho: Magazine latch...

Sachs: And this one?

Sasho: Band axle pin...trigger rod...pusher spring.

Sachs: Ehh...?

Sasho: No! Return spring.

Sachs: There you go. You’re getting better, faster.

Sasho: God, I haven’t used flashcards since the ninth grade. *chuckles* I probably should have used them in college. Maybe then I wouldn’t have flunked out. Hey, you don’t need a degree to be a spotter, do you?

Sachs: Not where we work. If you were to join the military as an officer, then yes, but not just to be a spotter. That’s just a requirement for everybody. I suppose you could be a member of the enlisted forces, but I wouldn’t recommend it. That’s how I started it, and it took a lot of hard work for me to become a sergeant.

Sasho: I’m not seriously thinking about it. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, I’m too old to join the military, right?

Sachs: You have a knack for this. Look, a spotter in the military isn’t the same as it is on a tack team. You’ll have a lot more responsibilities out here. In the army, my spotter just spotted. This is an elite squad, and you gotta be able to make up your own rules. You’ll always have a leader, of course, but it’s a far cry from the chain of command.

Sasho: I dunno. Maybe I should just go back to the jail.

Sachs: I can’t tell you what to do, but if I were you, I would pursue this.

Sasho: *nodding* Hey, so I was wondering...

Sachs: You can’t ask me that.

Sasho: No, okay. Sorry.

Ophelia: *through the radio* Team Lead, this is Team One. We have eyes on the target. He’s heading upstairs.

Reese: *through the radio* Team One, this is Team Lead. Hold fast. [...] Team Prime, do you have a visual?

Sachs: No. We can see into the apartment, but not the storefront, or the stairs.

Sasho: *into the radio* Negative, Team Lead. We can’t see the front.

Reese: *through the radio* Okay, Team Alpha, go, go, go. Take him down at his door.

Sasho: What do we do?

Sachs: *closing the bipod* Follow me. We need to get a better vantage point. They’re not gonna make it into the apartment. *leads him down the roof* Wait. You stay here. You’ll see them through that window in five seconds.

Sasho: Team One will be blocking the shot. We have to get across to the other roof.

Sachs: That’s where I’m going. Spot from there.

Sasho: I don’t know how to do that!

Sachs: I believe in you. Just tell me what you see, and where you see it. These rounds can break through the brick. *Hops over the alleyway*

Sasho: He’s gonna shoot through the wall?

Microstory 1817: Vector

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A lot of people think I’m a dumb meathead, but just because I was good at sports doesn’t mean I didn’t exercise my brain. I’m actually really smart and well-read, but I chose not to go to an Ivy League school, because my family didn’t have the money for it. Of course now we know that I could have taken out loans, and had them paid off after my first vector season, but we couldn’t run that risk. Besides, I ended up becoming a professional vector player because of a series of events in my life, starting with birth, and being admitted to my state school somewhere in the middle. So no, I don’t walk around with that prestige, but I’m happy with my choices, and you can’t argue with the results. There was a reason that I did so well in sports. I possessed a naturally high degree of precision. I could hit or throw a ball exactly where I wanted it to go, at least as long as it was within an acceptable range. I didn’t have all that much strength, so yeah, I could throw it towards the moon, but it would never reach it. I did not exactly choose Vector so much as it chose me. I liked to play a lot of different sports, but when it became clear which one was on the path of least resistance, I took my opportunity. I worked really hard to show the scouts that I had what it took to do this for real. I could play every position, but I was mostly a grabber. For those who don’t know, the grabber is the one that’s blindfolded much of the time. I had to take direction from the caller, and find the balls scattered throughout the field. At that point, I could remove my blindfold, and pass it to the wielder. I did things a little differently, and built up a nice reputation.

Here’s the thing, the opposing team’s jacker is watching you at all times, and as soon as they see your eyes, they know you have a ball, and they come after you. If they reach you before you can pass the ball, you lose that ball, and have to find it all over again, and good hiders do not make that easy. That’s why I just never took my blindfold off. It’s a strategy that had never been employed until then, and one that no player replicated quite as well after I started it. Man, I knew where my wielder was, and the jackers, and even the shielders, even though I didn’t need to know that information. I kept my ear on the whole game, and could give you the play-by-play later even though my eyes were covered the whole time, and I was busy with my own job. I could covertly pick up that ball, and toss it over before anyone could stop me. I was sneaky about it too, sometimes pretending to have a ball when I didn’t. If a jacker tags you, and your pocket is empty, they incur a penalty, so they better be right. They learned to be real careful when I was on the other side, but it still didn’t usually do them any good. Yeah, I was a great player, but like all good things, it was destined to come to an end. My game partner, the caller, was my best friend. We had to have a good relationship, and a secret language, in order to communicate effectively without anyone else knowing what was going on. One night, he took me to dinner to tell me that I ought to think about stepping down, and letting a new generation take over. It was tough, being told that it was time for me to leave. I felt like I had a few good years in me. I chose to go through with it, and I think my fans respected my decision. Looking back, I'm grateful for the honesty, and wish I had told him as much. I loved being the star of the show, but he was right. There were so many great kids whose chances I was stealing just by sticking around. I kept enough money to live comfortably, then gave the rest to charity. I never married, nor had kids.

Microstory 1739: Jana Crane

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For the most part, Jana Crane tried to keep to herself. She kept her head down, did her job, and didn’t complain when the people she worked with treated her like crap. She tried to be as accommodating as possible, without being a pushover who no one respected. She was a factory inspector, who would go around her region, making sure that the businesses she was assigned to were maintaining health and safety standards. She was thorough and careful, and didn’t let anything slide. Forgetting to fill out your monthly logs completely is one thing, but not properly securing a piece of incredibly dangerous equipment was just something that could not be tolerated. Her reports were not meant to get anyone in trouble, but she saw them as a way for the companies to improve themselves, and prevent anything from going terribly wrong. It would be bad for the floor workers if one of them became injured, and bad for the employers if that injured worker sued the company, or otherwise cost them money. Everyone should love inspectors for preventing such tragedies. At least that was how Jana saw it, but no one else shared her sentiments, even people whose lives she was trying to preserve. Perhaps if she wore a cape, and a symbol of some kind on her chest, they would think differently of her. One person in particular could have done with a little more perspective. He was a floor supervisor who probably should have never been promoted, but far be it for Jana to judge the process. What she could judge, however, was how casual he was with the safety protocols. He didn’t worry about locking down the machines. He let his people go in there without safety goggles. He didn’t care about anything. If she didn’t know any better, she might think he was asking for a bad outcome. Sadly, she was the one who ended up in a bad situation. She gave him low marks too many times, and he had had enough. She was going to stop inspecting his work, whether she wanted to or not.

The last thing she saw before the darkness was his face. He wasn’t wearing a mask, or anything. He probably thought she wouldn’t recognize him, and since she wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup later, he would get away with it. Or maybe he was just a moron who didn’t think things through carefully. That was the most likely reason he not only showed his face, but spoke to her after throwing the acid in her eyes, and made references to their previous encounters with each other. She screamed, but couldn’t cry, on account of the acid. She just tried her best to wipe the chemicals off of her face. She pulled her shirt off, and wiped some more. It got the excess off, but it didn’t stop the pain, and it wouldn’t give her her sight back. He didn’t laugh. He was angry; talking about how this was her fault, and if she had just ignored the infractions, this wouldn’t have had to happen. All this, like it was completely unavoidable. An unlocked chemical cabinet was unsafe, but he didn’t appear to recognize the irony. She could hear his footsteps grow fainter, so she started to reach out around her. Feeling around was taking too long, so Jana had to be bolder. By the end of this, she was going to have a lot of bruises, but she would live. Every second she waited would make it that much harder for the doctors to fix her eyes. She began to run. She didn’t run into anything, so she went faster and faster through the factory, all the way out into the cold, and over to a warehouse down the street, which she knew operated 24/7. Her vision was never quite the same after that, but she didn’t go blind, and the floor supervisor didn’t go free.

Microstory 1650: Breathe Freely

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There are two types of voldisil in my universe; natural-born voldisil, and kenvoldisil, which are given their spirit abilities by regular voldisil. We actually say, though, that the voldisil passes on their spirit. This sort of thing doesn’t happen often, because it comes with a price. Losing one’s spirit is not like losing one’s soul. They may sound like synonyms, but it’s more like the spirit is part of one’s soul. Not everyone has one, but if they do, they can’t lose it without also losing their lives. Most of the time, when one chooses to create a kenvoldisil, it’s because they’re dying anyway, and they believe their spirit has more work to do on this Earth. They just have to hope that the person they choose is worthy, and will use the abilities wisely. Landis Tipton is one such kenvoldisil, but he did not just receive one spirit; he received five, and not because he was deemed worthy, but because he was the only choice. Five voldisil friends were all attacked by a powerful and angry sixth voldisil, and they knew that their time was up. They ran off, looking for a new group of five to take up the mantle. Unfortunately, it was a late hour, and they were in a sparsely populated part of town, so they only managed to find Landis. Still, they had to do something, so with their final breaths, they drove their spirits into him. They didn’t even have time to explain to him what they were, what he now was, and what he was meant to do with his new gifts. Separately, the abilities had many great uses. They were fit for a team looking to do some good. Combined, the applications were less useful, so he really just focused on one. Landis now had the ability to see someone’s regrets, smell their health, hear their desires, feel their pain, and taste their lies.

Without a team, Landis didn’t know what he was supposed to do with his life now. Should he become a therapist, and help people overcome their problems by knowing their regrets and desires? Could he become a human lie detector, helping the authorities catch criminals? Or should he diagnose medical conditions, and relay that information to medical professionals? Well, what he realized was that the original five voldisil probably weren’t using their spirit gifts in the best way possible. They were helping one person—or maybe one small group—at a time. He wasn’t even sure whether they knew that their abilities could be reversed. When he looked at someone, he could witness events of their past that they wished never happened, but when they looked into his eyes, he could show them their potential. Their voice could tell him what they want, while his voice could comfort them, and make them feel satisfied with their lives. He could sense pain, and take it away with touch. He could taste lies, but also force them to tell the truth. But the most important ability he now possessed was the only one he ended up really using. His nose could detect health, but his breath could heal. Once he discovered this, everything changed. He sat down, and made a plan, and then he carried out that plan exquisitely. He first approached the wealthiest man in the city who was publicly known to be presently having health issues. He made a deal. Give Landis a thousand dollars right now on the chance that Landis could heal him, and then the rest of the million dollars once the oncologist told him he was cured. Of course, the man was hesitant, but a thousand bucks was nothing to him, and he had tried everything else, so he might as well give it a shot.

A few weeks later, Landis was a millionaire. He didn’t just spend the money on fast cars, and small-portion food, though. He asked the man to reach out to his other sick, but rich, friends, and got himself a few more million dollars, and then Landis bought a hotel. He cleared out all the guests, hired a growing team, and started a foundation. He brought in people one by one. They literally stood in line, and waited their turn to be healed. He didn’t always charge them, though. Much of the pre-work that needed to be done involved looking over every patient’s finances to determine which category they fit into. The rich people paid, the less rich people didn’t pay anything, and poor people actually received money. It was just free money that Landis gave them, along with the cure for what ailed them, from an account that was funded by the wealthiest of patients. As word spread, the operation was able to expand. A security team maintained order in the ballroom. A video played in the entertainment room, explaining to people what they were here for, and why it worked the way it worked. Just about all his staff members lived in the hotel, which was why he chose it in the first place, instead of a gymnasium, or something. It was a complicated, and extremely efficient program, which served to cure literally millions of people over the course of several years. He didn’t do much but work. Someone came into the room, he breathed on them, and then they left to make room for the next one. He worked for about ten hours every day, stopping only to use the restroom, and eat. In the evening, he had a nice dinner, enjoyed an hour-long massage, then started his nightshift, which was... Well, it was different. Let’s just say that certain women were...interested in...seeing if his abilities could be...passed onto a new generation. Landis took this part of his job seriously, and was doing it for all the right reasons, but he didn’t apologize for not hating it, nor for screening the candidates personally. In the end, Landis saved billions of lives once researchers were able to replicate his healing abilities—and only his healing abilities—for mass production. He was inarguably the most important voldisil in our history.

Microstory 1424: How to Protect a Town With Pointless Powers

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Some of the source mages wanted the process of gifting people with mage powers to be fair. They wanted to randomize it, so that a selectee could ultimately end up with anything. That seemed fine on paper, but it could cause a lot of problems down the road. No amount of competitive scoring was good enough to measure precisely what an individual would do with their powers once they actually received them. A given person might be incredibly noble and brave with the ability to repulse time monsters, but end up gravely dangerous with the power to manipulate reality itself. Same person, different powers, wildly different outcomes. Still, it would be irresponsible to leave it up to chance. They ought to be trying to tailor powers towards the mage’s innate abilities. There were also countless powers that wouldn’t be very helpful for a mage at all. For instance, it might be cool for someone to have the ability to see what an object will look like in the future, to measure the effects of wear and tear over time, but they wouldn’t be able to fight a monster with that. By the time the first sourcing ceremony began, the source mages had reached a decision, though some were not happy about it. They didn’t feel like they had any choice but to control what power someone received. They would do their best not to play favorites, but making it random was just too risky. It was not, however, so simple. No matter how unbiased they were, or thought they were, people would accuse them of being unfair. They could claim it was random, but some would not believe it, and even if these were only a minority voice, a small group could grow. To protect themselves against this backlash, they decided that someone needed to be sacrificed. His name was Vaion Newport, and he hoped to end up the most powerful town mage of all, but his excellent scores in the Mage Games were exactly what made this impossible.

Source mage Madoc Raptis was tasked with giving Vaion a pointless power. They wanted to show that anyone could end up with any gift, and there was no guarantee they would like it. It was particularly important to use Madoc for this, because he hated the inequity of some of their decisions, and he was considered the lucky one. If even he could source someone a power that wasn’t good for them, then it could happen to anyone, and the source mages must not have been lying when they claimed it was completely out of their control. After being sourced, Vaion learned that he now had the ability to freeze time in place. That kind of thing happened all the time in movies, but in real life, it was practically impossible, and no one had ever heard of it before. If time were to stop completely, then nothing would be moving. Photons couldn’t bounce off of objects, and show an observer what they looked like. Air couldn’t reach people’s lungs. Nothing could move, not even Vaion himself. And of course, that was the whole problem. While technically time wasn’t totally stopped, it was slow enough, and did not really give anyone an advantage, or disadvantage. While this was active, Vaion was able to continue thinking, and even process oxygen in his blood, but once time restarted, everything pretty much just continued as it was, without anyone having detected a change. It was interesting to be able to essentially stop time—and no one in histories enjoyed this same power—but since he also couldn’t move, it was useless in the war against the monsters. If he wanted to help the town, he had to contribute in some other way. Madoc was sick to his stomach that he had to do this to Vaion. None of the winners would have deserved this, but especially not him. Madoc resented his friends for making him do it, and vowed to never do anything like it again. He walked another path, and subverted the Mage Games by sourcing those who did nothing to earn powers at all, every year, and everyone let him do this. Meanwhile, the rest of the source mages continued as they were, and in order to maintain the lie, they always sourced at least one person with a power that was pointless against the monsters.