METANOIA [01.03]

The Investigation Opens

Mar 23, 2025

..03.01 | Inspiration

September 7th-28th, 2057

After a few days of uncomfortable sleep, injections, physical therapy, a visit from his parents, and the occasional stop-by from Ed and one or two other coworkers, John was finally released from the hospital. The life he returned to appeared nearly identical to the one he had left. The only surface-level difference was that John became much less involved at work. His coworkers noticed but attributed it to lingering trauma and were supportive of his change in pace.

In reality John had been using his evenings to experiment with the phenomenon he stumbled upon: his “taser hands,” as he called it endearingly. The endeavor consumed nearly every free moment of his thought. The phenomenon proved more stubborn to control than he expected—albeit an expectation born of baseless optimism after only his second success. Try as he might to summon electricity with the ease of flicking one’s fingers, he instead found he could only manage it by fully reliving that moment. The more vividly he could imagine it, the more clearly he could recall that wavelike sensation, and the stronger the resulting spark.

How immensely frustrating that was. Not because invoking all of the pain deeply ingrained in his memories was persistently unpleasant—though it was—but because there’d be considerably less uses for his new trick if a near-death experience was the only way to trigger it. If that was to be the end of it, he could take consolation in how it saved his life at least once already. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t accept that so easily.

A few weeks passed with John trying everything he could to work out the mechanism behind his strange bioelectrical weapon, yet he felt hardly any closer to the truth of it. Though, since he could trigger it intentionally, he was certain it wasn’t some divine intervention. There had to be some kind of cause and effect rule behind it. Unfortunately, he found himself fatigued easily ever since the incident, so the amount of useful testing he could do in a given period of time was limited, slowing progress considerably. As for the bigger, philosophical questions about his situation—like “why me” or “where does it come from”—such questions seemed irrelevant until he could at least figure out how to use it properly.

At the end of September, three weeks since the incident, he took a pause on his stress-inducing trials and began again to wander the city from the moment he left work until late in the evening, lost deep in thought all the while. He didn’t entirely remember where he went, nor did it ever matter to him. After five years in the city, he was familiar with the whole of it—save each month’s latest additions. Thus, he simply picked a direction and set off, always happening to end up back home by some way or another.

Joule was laid out in a peculiar way. Rather than a square grid, it was arranged as a cluster of circular city blocks of varying size called its “islands.” Most sat around the average of a thousand feet in diameter; the largest was twice that, though it was an outlier by a wide margin. Most had just one road around the perimeter of the block while the buildings were predominately laid out in ringed patterns within. The shortest were to the outer edge and they rose up exponentially as one progressed inward. For half of the islands this culminated in a grand skyscraper at the center, a showcase of wealth and glory for the sponsoring person or organization that brought that slice of the city into existence. Others were more culture oriented in what they featured: a concert hall, an arboretum, a college of arts… to give a few examples.

Invisibly linking this metropolitan archipelago was a network of underground arterial roads. They snaked around and below the islands, feeding into the main freeway that cut across the length of the underside in a slight curve—the city’s hidden spine. On- and off-ramps fed directly into the edge roads of the major islands to get traffic to and fro. Some of the smaller, adjacent islands instead relied on short surface connections to their fully-networked neighbors.

With its peculiar geometries and with most of the major roadways hidden away in the earth, the gaps between the islands were plentiful and left for managed greenbelts full of the local flora and fauna—even some concerningly tall pines.

What was actually John’s favorite feature of the city was the web-work of suspended bridges between the taller buildings. Joule’s “skyways” were far more ambitious in design than the simple, enclosed hallways anyone would have passed through in any other part of the world. For one, the average Joulian skyway was hundreds of feet in length, and the lot of them—chained from structure to structure—formed a commutable network of footpaths through most of the major islands. Additionally, nearly all of them were open-air, and some were parks in all but name, furnished as they were with benches, lights, plants, and other small things one might expect walking down an urban trail.

Their construction had been spurred on by “trends amongst the wealthier patrons of the city”—supposedly. That story explained how they bypassed any reasonable cost-benefit analysis with only one toe left in reality, but John had a hard time believing something requiring so much coordination could spring up so spontaneously. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for their existence to be justified by popularity, and many found them efficient enough for regular trips—whether by foot, bike, or some other fashionable personal transportation device. Most were built just high enough to clear the minor buildings of the islands they reached across—somewhere between eight to sixteen stories—sometimes using those lower buildings as supports and branching points. The more ambitious skyways were built as high as their anchor buildings would allow. One—not available to the public—was a thousand feet above street level.

Late into a clear but otherwise unspectacular autumn night, John found himself staring out into the city from one such recently finished skyway. It was on the higher end, at around thirty stories, and at that time was the furthest out from the city center. From there, the fullness of the city’s engineering marvels filled the eye. The great towers with all their impressive architectures flanked him on all sides and loomed large overhead like a congregation of Titans out of Greek myth.

But John doubted any man in history, no matter how reverential, ever imagined a Titan would be as tall as that one. At the geographic center of the city—and peculiarly the lowest point of elevation—the largest of the islands sat throne to the greatest skyscraper ever built: The Emperor.

Its base swept the whole of its territory into a rising, terraced spiral from which emerged four spires—each sizable enough to make a modest skyscraper on their own. They wrapped like vines around and around a central column as it rose higher and higher and higher. Even after the structure had taken every respectable crown and record in the world, they continued to build, its lead measuring in hundreds of feet. Would they not stop until it grew to a thousand? How did the weight of those twisting spires not cause the whole mass to sway treacherously with the wind? John could not make sense of it, and it never ceased to fill him with awe.

It was a mythical feat of engineering, and the fashion of its exterior invited one to believe it had been pulled right out of an ancient age. Though made of the most modern of materials—of glass and steel and composites—its façades were composed of innumerable, thin, tall arches like palaces and monuments of antiquity and trimmed in graceful patterns of abstracted flora. On some levels there were rooftop parks and proper gardens adding a feeling of natural life to the tower. And on that night, it was given a subtle, enchanted glow by tens of thousands of soft, weak lights behind portions of frosted glass at the tops of nearly every window. It was a creation that held a great hubris in its heart and covered itself in gentle elegance.

In just about every way imaginable, it tried and succeeded in being the most important and awe-inspiring structure in a town full of novel, eye-catching achievements. It even assumed the responsibility of housing the facilities for all major utilities in its district, where possible. The man who commissioned it shared its personality: the biggest, most self-important person you’d ever meet, but one who had arguably taken on enough responsibility to justify his attitude. Or so Ed had argued. They called him “Old Man Nivar,” and if he had a proper name, it had been forgotten to time for your average Joulian. He was an enigmatic fellow who rarely appeared in public or the news and so few had ever actually seen him. John himself had only gotten close to a sighting when he and Ed got an exclusive invite to a higher floor for a party hosted in the Emperor, but even when only five floors down from the top, they were several social circles removed from sharing a room with their host.

Whoever that man really was, he seemed to only truly exist to the city’s greatest. To everyone else, there was only the tower he had built. In that respect, his influence was astoundingly palpable even in its mystery.

Perhaps that layer of mystery was why it struck such a profound chord in John as he gazed upon it again from that fresh angle. He could see the fullness of the detail in its architecture and craftsmanship in a way that was impossible when one was right next to it or even on one of the closer skyway bridges. With the complex elegance of its form and vast height, the term “superstructure” didn’t seem enough to describe the impact of it. And with all of its disciples around it, there was no better way to describe the scene before him than pure grandeur.

John felt a surge of awe at the effort and ingenuity of it all. There was a nostalgia to that moment, a strange thing to experience in a land so new, but it was the same fascination that had gripped him the first time he beheld Joule’s expanding skyline with his own eyes; it was that desire to pursue goals far beyond what he believed the world would allow to exist.

And, as his heart flooded with that rediscovered inspiration, that other strange yet now familiar feeling swelled as though he had been tossed into the ocean.

John stretched out his hand and breathed deeply. His mind filled with novel ambitions and plans for things he had barely once considered. An ethereal energy drew into him. A trickle at first, then a deluge that ripped the air around his limb with crackling arcs of glowing azure—some jumping out several feet into the space before him. His face could feel the superheated air, yet neither a single hair nor thread on his body was singed. After just a moment, the feeling subsided and the air sparked no more.

He grinned proudly, thinking himself a few steps closer to the true nature of that “soul wave.” One thing he was now sure of: the phenomenon was no freak mutation triggered by a survival instinct; it was something much greater. Many, many questions remained unanswered, but John was content for the evening, pleased to have discovered as much as he had through such spontaneous means.

As he felt the oncoming of another migraine, he decided to—

“Du—de!”

John froze. He had thought himself alone but realized that quite some time had passed since he had actually checked.

“That was absolutely righteous! How’d you do that!?”

“What? You can’t? That was a pretty basic trick.” John turned around as he bluffed reflexively to see a scraggly man of average height with spiked, bleached-white hair. With various metal piercings and a punk-rock getup several decades out of date, John would have considered him particularly odd. But the city attracted many eccentric personalities whose high standard demoted that particular example to merely “rather” odd. Perhaps his didn’t-quite-make-it look was popular again in the city’s more trendsetting music scenes.

The man’s eyes gleamed as if they still reflected the light of the passing spectacle they had just witnessed and his whole face beamed with the excitement of a child on Christmas day. He was a man quite certain of what he had witnessed and his nature left no room for doubting his own senses—exactly the last kind of person John wanted to encounter at that moment. He would be a tricky opponent in the game of misdirection and coverups, but… John felt he could manage it.

The man’s expressions fluctuated wildly between disbelief and wonder at John’s claim. “Hell no! That’s not a thing, are you serious? No one told me that! Can you show me?!”

“You just gotta feel the ‘Wave of Creation,’ man. Once you’re in tune, it all just flows out.”

“Bull.” The man’s immediate reaction was thoroughly skeptical. That façade lasted for not even a breath before it gave way to a slack jaw and a look that said his understanding of the world had just shattered. Were there any better lighting to see by, John would have sworn he saw the color drain from the man’s face. It seemed he was buying into whatever John was selling.

Yet… why did he seem so sad all of a sudden. The man became transfixed and engrossed in a somber contemplation—like the moments of reflection spent around the last flickers of a campfire.

John hurried his mind, desperate for an excuse to make a clean break.

Too late. As if someone had dropped fresh tinder, the man’s spirit reignited into a blaze of determination. He shot his fist into the air and shouted, “Alright! How do I start?”

John was nearly paralyzed by the number of emotional changes occurring in such a short period of time. His conscious mind kept at its task while some lower circuit of his wit took the reins of his body, and he pointed out towards the city. “You see all this?”

Confused, the man confirmed, “Um, yeah?”

“This is your key. Look out on the city. Drink in all its detail. Feel the collective efforts of its people and their dreams and desires. When you can feel their thoughts, you’ve begun your path.”

The man was awestruck.

“Good luck.” And with that, John walked off as fast as he could without breaking into a run. He only looked back once he was nearly to the end of the bridge. To his surprise, the man actually seemed to have accepted everything he said and was taking the pose of one out to challenge a giant as he stood right where John had.

John chuckled under his breath. Then he grimaced. Though his fake explanation was a bit distorted, it really wasn’t that different from what he himself had been doing, was it? The gears in John’s mind spun a few nervous cycles, then he gave up on the thought and shrugged his shoulders.

Surely a man that eclectically minded would grow bored, give up, and go home in a few minutes.

..03.02 | Will

But a breath later…

A short expletive escaped John’s lips as he turned back around.

The wannabe rocker, it seemed, was not the last person he wanted to encounter that night; that honor went to the older-looking gentleman with unruly grey hair smoking by the doorway to the access elevators and staring at John with a grin as suspicious as it was aloof. He was wearing shorts, sandals, and an unbuttoned, red Hawaiian shirt over a white tee—an outward appearance that screamed “carefree beach bum.” Yet, the look about his face was that of a hound tracking a scent.

So, which was he, John wondered. “Some kind of con artist or very blatant creep?” the man voiced. “Take a guess.”

“Psychic.”

“I wish. Would make my job easier.” The cigarette never left his mouth as he meandered up to John.

“I’ll bet it would…. So? What’s your deal?”

“Take another guess.”

If there was anything that unsettled John the most, it was the eyes. They told John that only one person was a stranger in this exchange, and they delighted in letting John know this. That gave John some good guesses, but the way he was asked tugged at his rebellious side. “You’re a delusional entrepreneur here to proposition me about your latest genius business venture.”

“Warm. Try again.”

“Enough. Just spit it out.”

The man chuckled. “Sorry. Can’t resist with people like you. It’s too fun watching the hamster wheel spin in panic.”

Despite the playful delivery, John’s guard only rose higher.

“I did come to give you a job offer, actually,” the man started. “Just one for a very well-established organization, not another hot-mess startup looking for unicorns.”

“Is that so?”

The two men sized each other up before speaking another word. John tensed reflexively as he tried to gauge what exactly this old hound was hunting for. Any more careless words and he would find himself in a bad place quick, he reckoned—and not for what the man could do to him right then and there.

However, it was a one-sided mind game. This random old guy didn’t just understand John, he knew about him. He had revealed himself right after John slipped up and made a show of his strange new ability. Was that coincidence or intent? Coincidence was unlikely, judging by the confidence in his grin. Intent meant he knew something; probably even something about the incident in the garage. Then was this casual old man a cop? He didn’t look the part, though that would be a well-established “business” of a sort, but the city police were too new to deserve the emphasis….

And the old hound had his amusement again.

John relaxed in resignation and sighed. “I don’t take job offers from strangers.”

The man presented a badge. “Will Caulfield. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Looking to get your help on a case.”

“Uh-huh…” John’s skepticism was unrelieved. “What would you need me for, exactly? Got a wiring diagram important to a lead? Need to consult on some haywire construction bot? The station’s power go out?”

“There is some electricity involved, yeah. You see, I just saw a guy pull lightning out of thin air. Seemed pretty dangerous, so it’s a matter of national security to find out everything we can about that.”

“Oh. Interesting. So, you wanna drag him to some military lab for ‘research?’ Sucks to be him I guess.” John delivered the remark as if it were a joke, all the while beginning to backpedal away.

“Hah! Maybe if someone else found you first, but you lucked out. Since I got here first, you get to assist in fieldwork as a ‘consultant.’ See, several odd things have been happening around town lately and I need to look into them. Sounds fun, yeah?”

Several? “Not really,” John lied egregiously as he stopped again. “But you look like you’re already having too much fun for a fed as it is, so I doubt you’ll need me.”

Nothing about their meeting seemed very “official.” Will didn’t exactly seem… outright malicious, but how was John supposed to verify the authenticity of that badge card? Fake IDs were a dime a dozen.

The man called Will picked up on John’s concern. “I take every chance I can get to ditch the tie and jacket, but here—a printout of your own account of the parking garage incident. Only someone working with the JPD should have that, yeah?”

Will tucked his badge away with one hand and, with the other, retrieved a folded stack of papers from his back pocket. With a quick flick, he tossed them forward, sending the spinning bundle right into John’s chest. He caught it awkwardly and began to read.

“We can stop by the nearest police station to go through the nice… long… full confirmation process too—if you really, really want to,” Will added.

John ignored him as he flipped to the next page. Sure enough: it was his own words verbatim. The last page even included a handwritten note describing the conversation after the recorder was turned off.

“I doubt that confirmation would take more than a few seconds,” John concluded. “Yeah, I’ll bite. You’re a fed. But it’s still going to be a ‘no’ from me on the job. I already got a nice gig in a field I’m actually proficient in. Not interested in switching careers at the moment.”

Will pointed his chin up as he scratched its wispy hairs in doubt. With some played-up disappointment, he said, “Oh? You looked real interested in figuring out your whole Zeus act there just a minute ago. I thought maybe a good supernatural mystery was what was distracting you at work recently.” Raising his hands to the side, Will bowed his head in an exaggerated yielding motion. “Ah, but what do I know. I’m sure you need something nice and secure for your family and all.”

John glared cold and hard as he caught the sly grin that followed that last remark.

“Them’s the breaks for me, I guess.” Will continued, entirely unperturbed. “I’m sure there’s another bright, unflappable person out there who’s already gone toe-to-toe with the unknown and come out the other side with his mind intact. Easy pickings, I’m sure… Might be tricky finding another one that comes pre-packaged with some brawling experience, but I’ll live.”

Now this man was crossing a line. “Good luck with that and good night. I really oughta get home now.” John hurried towards the door past Will.

“Yep, yep. Good night,” he said while putting out his cigarette in a small container he drew from his pocket.

As John went through the door towards the elevators, he shot one last, menacing look over at the ever-amused older man. He got a sinking suspicion that would not be the last they saw of each other.

There was at least one other person who had encountered that demon and was none the worse for wear psychologically: Vincent. But John had a feeling that the obvious difference between the two was the real reason why Will was there.

It was going to be a long month, it seemed.

..03.03 | Coerced

September 29th

Not even twelve hours had passed before John was forced to reconsider the surprise job offer as the security gate to his office elevators buzzed in denial. At first he hoped it was merely a small error in their security system—a defect in his ID card. After a visit to the desk and a call to his manager, he discovered that he was on an “indefinite leave of absence due to health concerns.”

In other words: terminated. Doctor’s orders, supposedly.

John was upset but not surprised, and so opted leave without a fuss and head home. Chances were good that he’d have a “guest” arriving there soon, but he felt not even the slightest bit of shame in making them wait a bit. There were, after all, a few errands John needed to run in his newfound free time as of… right that moment. The weather was nice enough. Perhaps a park visit would be refreshing. A new restaurant had opened as well that he was interested in.

Regrettably, his guest would likely have to wait a long while.

Late in the afternoon, John finally arrived back at the parking garage under his apartment. He grabbed his small bag of goods out of the passenger seat and made his way up the stairs to his apartment. Sure enough, Will was leaning on the wall outside his door, smoking away. “Oh my, a visitor! What a surprise. Whatever could I do ya for?” John wielded the insincerity of his exaggerated tone with all the elegance of a club.

“Don’t mind me, I was just in the neighborhood and thought to ask how your job went today.” Will was grinning mischievously again. It seemed to be a permanent fixture of his face.

John took a nice, deep breath and resisted the urge to throw his bag…. After exhaling: “You should consider smoking less and bringing more food when you show up at someone’s home. Might help make a better impression.”

“Eh, well, if you were a chick, I might have considered it.”

John walked past Will and into his flat—quite definitively shutting the door behind him. After a few well-padded minutes of putting things away and tidying up, he came back out. Will hadn’t moved an inch.

“Alright… let’s get this over with. We going somewhere? Or do I get to telecommute to this job?”

“That all the fight you got?”

John briefly wondered just how long he could make that old man wait out there. It was supposed to rain later that night as well. He scratched his cheek and admitted, “It’s not like I’m completely against this… sketchy looking as you are. Besides, if your opening salvo is faking a medical diagnosis to get me fired, I’m not up to wasting my time finding out what other tricks you would pull.” He shot a fierce glare at the man. “Just know that if you think I’m doing this pro bono, I’ll find a way to make you regret this.” He wasn’t entirely sure he convinced himself with that threat.

“Oh, that won’t be a problem. Never you mind that.” Will pushed off the wall and headed toward the elevator. John followed him to a black sedan and got in—despite his better judgement.

The ride was good and silent for half the trip as they floated effortlessly down the busy yet un-congested roads. Will weaved his way along the curving streets and subterranean highways with the smoothness and certainty of a long-time resident. It was really a trivial thing, but that proficiency counted towards just a little bit of respect in John’s eyes. The city was infamous among outsiders for its non-standard road layout, and even more so for the city’s requirement for all human drivers to pass a very rigorous exam before they could drive in the city—regardless of whatever state licensing they held. Even the self-driving cars and buses, which were the majority, had to meet a certain standard of technical confidence—a standard usually only met by the systems programmed in the city.

Road standards in the city generated no small amount of controversy, but John found the complaints to be all hot air. Personally, he had never met a person who hadn’t fallen in love with their system within a year of moving there—if not within the first month.

Will finally broke the ice: “I think I know exactly who we need to investigate first about these supernatural occurrences—”

“The Joule City Roadways Department.”

“Tch. Overused joke, huh?”

“You think it’s a joke, but some of us seriously consider the possibility they dabbled in some kind of magic. The real crackpot theorists—the ones trying to claim the civil engineers set up the roads in giant summoning circles, or something like that—are going to have a field day if any of the witness accounts of ‘demon possession’ make their way to them.”

Will chuckled. “Those were some pretty entertaining people to talk to. The information brokers around here don’t take them too seriously, but the… self-motivated are good to have around when you need to kick up dust. Seemed like every day another person came in to their ‘closed’ forums with another bombshell update. Most of it junk, of course, but”—Will furrowed his brow and the edges of his lips dropped— “it really is hard to believe a city road could flow this smoothly without a child sacrifice or two.”

“Hard to accept, isn’t it?” John grinned. “Personally, I’ll stick with the mundane explanation for my conscience’s sake. If I question the dream too much, it might end.”

..03.04 | Job Description

Evening

They soon arrived at a district on the edge of town, one of the very few exclusions to the island-based structure, which was dedicated to storage and light industry. Will drove up to one of a set of smaller, unassuming buildings off a side road, retrieved a tucked away remote, and pointed it vaguely in the direction of two garage doors at the end of the unit. A faint click ordered one door to open and Will slipped his vehicle in before the whirring overhead motor could finish its work.

It was a simple space inside, best suited for a small-scale distribution business or a budding manufacturing operation. For its current tenants, the barren interior space housed only a black van, a few temporary desks, and some black plastic storage containers. The far wall had three doors and one large interior window with its blinds closed: likely an office, bathroom, and break room, in that order. The final feature of note was a loft above those rooms where there looked to be makeshift living quarters.

“Welcome to your new workplace! Just finished setting up yesterday.”

“So, how long were you living in the van while you ran recon?”

Will was already reaching into his pocket to pull out another cigarette as they stepped out of the car. “About a month. These bones put up a bit more of a fuss than they used to, but gotta do what you gotta do.”

“I’m glad you were so dedicated to derailing my life.”

“What better way to spend one’s twilight years than using all your time to throw wrenches into everyone else’s plans?” He casually walked towards the door by the interior window.

John followed, smirking. “The truth behind the FBI comes out. They are a cabal of bored old men just trying to make our lives miserable.”

“Does feel like that most days.”

It was subtle, but John caught a somberness hidden in Will’s remark.

“Alright! Let’s meet your new mail-order bride!” As Will reached out to open the door, it suddenly cracked open, and a hand stuck through to slap a sign on the front.

NO SMOKING

Will clicked his tongue and turned right around. “Fine. I’m going to step outside for a minute. She can do the whole darn orientation herself if that’s what she wants.” He grumbled the whole way back to the open garage door.

Ignoring him, John twisted the handle of the newly christened office door and stepped in. The decent-sized room had a few more temporary tables, this time furnished with computer equipment and desk chairs.

While one of the two ready stations was home to a mere laptop in front of an at-least-decent-looking camping chair, the other served as a stage to an intimidating array of monitors and a sizable computing rig that subtly exuded its potential processing power through the even whispers of a multitude of unseen fans. The decadently ergonomic chair paired to that station spun around to reveal a young, petite woman with wavy, sandy blonde hair that fell just past the shoulders.

“Did he tell you anything useful?” The woman spoke in a soft and even but completely disinterested tone.

“Just that he wants me to help investigate that freak I stumbled into last month—and related matters… It seems your little sign has derailed him for the day, though.”

The woman rotated towards the window and stared intently for a brief moment. John couldn’t see any cracks in her bored expression, but the implication was enough to imagine sparks flying out of her eyes.

She turned back. “Fine. I’ll explain what we’re doing, but I’m giving the short version.”

“Great. Wasn’t interested in hearing all the bureaucracy of it anyway.”

“Alright…” She paused a moment and looked to the side, assembling the pieces of her explanation and whittling it down with concentrated effort. “…Your encounter in that garage was the third known case. Similar incidents have been happening for a few months now.”

That was news to John but not a revelation. He had been considering that possibility since he met Will. “And the FBI thinks they’ll continue,” he extrapolated.

“No. Just us and some of the Joule Police Department. The FBI… Will can tell you more when he feels like it. For now, only you, me, and that crazy old guy will be actively investigating.”

“Is he that bad?”

“Sorry, I misspoke. He’s reliable. Just expect a lot of annoying remarks.”

“Uh, huh.”

She promptly returned to the main topic: “When there are no active leads, Will and I will be here or following up with connections to find some. When that’s the case, you’re free to do as you wish. Just be ready to respond if we contact you—so don’t leave the city. Once we have a lead, you and I will follow it.”

“I’m essentially your assistant detective, then.”

The “mail-order bride” comment began to make some sense to John—not that it did that man’s sense of humor any credit…. And wouldn’t John be the one on mail-order in that scenario? And it was less mail-order and more a kidnapping….

“Not as an assistant,” she corrected. “You’re the field leader.”

John stared at her in disbelief, expecting another one of Will’s ill-humored jokes.

“My main job is analysis and observation. As Will puts it, I’m ‘smart and have good eyes’ but he’d ‘rather have a robot do the talking and planning.’” Her phrasing implied she took some offense to Will’s explanation, but her tone had not perceptibly shifted up or down, and though her mouth began to pout in protest, she couldn’t quite shake her sleepy expression. “And he’s an old coot. So, here we are.”

As wrong as it seemed that they would suddenly put him in charge of any part of this operation, Will had a point…. There was a certain endearing quality to her attempts at proving otherwise, however.

She set her grievances aside and returned to her briefing: “We’ll be giving you some training, but this is… an improvised investigation. Our risk tolerance is higher with all the unknowns. There’ll be gaps in what we can teach you. Will thinks you can handle it, though.”

The amount of responsibility the two were casually throwing at him was anxiety-inducing, to say the least. Normally, he’d be ecstatic about minimal micromanagement, but given the circumstances, it seemed like outright negligence on his handlers’ part.

She continued, “If you run into any trouble with local authorities, we can try to bail you out if we deem that your actions supported the investigation and the interests of the nation. Do anything malicious and… um… just don’t get on Will’s bad side. We’ll leave it at that.”

He couldn’t not ask. “Have you seen that before?”

“I’ve heard it hasn’t happened much since I started working with him, but yeah, there was this one guy. Did a lot of little things Will didn’t like—then let some really bad things happen. His career and reputation fell apart quickly enough, but… Will didn’t leave it at that.”

“…I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yeah.… Um…” The woman appeared to be struggling to think of what else would be relevant. “Any questions?”

“Your name?”

“Oh. Right. Mia.”

“Nice to meet you, Mia. Hope we work well together.”

“Same.” She lazily swiveled back and forth for a moment, keeping her eyes on John. “Well? Any more?”

“Not really. Just gotta go poke around for info and try not to die in the process, yeah?”

“That’s an extreme simplification, but sure… You’re more agreeable than I expected.”

John shrugged dispassionately. “Last month I woke up in the hospital with multiple stab wounds and the ability to shoot lightning out of my fingertips. Starting to think this is just going to be the way of things.”

“Mmhmm. The perfect conformist attitude for government work. You’ll do great.”

It was to be a trio of snark, then. Perfect, John thought. It would be a small wonder if they made it through the rest of the year without one of them getting shot.

Undoubtedly, he would be the one when the time came.

The door clacked and swung open, then a freshly cigarette-free Will poked his head in. “Done with the wedding planning?”

Mia responded reflexively, like it was part of an overplayed gag between the two of them: “We’re eloping. Going straight to the courthouse.”

“Efficient. I like it. Hey John, come here.”

John followed Will over to a sturdy black case on one of the tables in the open space of the warehouse.

Will gave the case a nice pat. “How you feel about guns?”

“Plenty comfortable with them if that’s what you’re asking. Used to go to the range with my family growing up.”

“Perfect. But I knew that. What I mean is how do you feel about this gun?”

Will snapped open the latches of the case and lifted the lid. Inside, a handgun sitting right on the razor’s edge of “large” and “practical” sat nestled in foam beside two extra magazines and a modernized, tanto-style knife. John picked up the gun and ensured the chamber was clear; it was everything he wanted in a sidearm: an elegant frame shaped to line up with the natural pointing motion; a balance that made it easy to handle, but with a decent heft to keep it stable; and no flashy ornaments or gaudy paint, just a clean, matte-black finish—as one would expect from government-issued equipment.

It was love at first sight.

“Hah! I’ll take your slack jaw as proof I was right.”

“Your ability to read people is creepy as hell,” John said as he pored over the details. “But… I can’t deny you’ve used your power for good here.” The gun wasn’t inscribed with a logo he recognized but still had clear serial numbers. The barrel also baffled him, as it was considerably narrower than he expected from a law enforcement weapon. “What… is it, though?”

“A little piece of local culture I found.”

“Here? Joule has a gun manufacturer?”

“They’re not open to the public quite yet,” Will answered, “but you don’t need to worry about the details.”

John set it down, then fiddled with one of the empty magazines. “Okay, but what does it shoot?”

“That’s custom too, but it's basically a modified five-seven. Packs an even bigger punch when it hits the fleshy bits. It can fire a standard five-seven, too, so I don’t have to burn all my savings just to see if your handling is up to my standards. Which…”

Will grabbed the lid of the case and tapped expectantly. John woefully put everything back and slid it over.

“…You will be doing before I let you carry this baby anywhere.”

“Of course… No less-lethal tools, though?”

Will smirked. “You already have a built-in taser. Use that if you really need it.”

“You’re assuming it’s something I can do at will.”

“Ah, you’ll figure it out soon enough. Besides, you’re not going after money launderers and rioters. If you encounter another ‘Angler Tooth’ with Mia tagging along, I won’t be the one who left you with bear spray and rubber bullets.”

“I’m sensing some fatherly instincts kicking in,” John quipped.

“You’ll be sensing a whole lotta nothing if you let my one good subordinate get injured.”

“… Understood.”

“That said, she’ll be carrying a rifle of her own. It’s not escort duty, but she’ll have it stowed in a case until needed, so it’s on you for first response if any uglies show.”

Unable to reconcile the mounting expectations in his head, John blurted out, “So, what? You think you can pluck me out of an office, take a few days to ‘teach me on the job,’ then suddenly I’ll be ready for this?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Then why?”

“Because we might not even have a single day to train you before something else happens. When it does, I don’t wanna roll dice on someone who’ll wet their pants and run screaming when they see one of those things. We haven’t shown you the other ones yet, but they ain’t any prettier. You, however, have already proved you’ll go in mano-y-mano with the things if that’s what it’ll take—and it’s not because you’re a meatheaded moron…. So yeah, I’m willing to bet you’ll learn the rest on the job…. Oh, and we both know a civilian college wasn’t your original plan,” Will added.

The fingers on John’s right hand stretched and then curled tight. He sought satisfaction with an allegation instead. “I still find it hard to believe you couldn’t get one other person from the Bureau to do this.”

Will knit his brow. “You got Mia.”

“Two other people.”

“Two? Not a chance. Not in my circles, and those were the only ones that would have given this case a second thought. Maybe I could have poached someone from somewhere in the organization, but it took me years to find one, and… well… her employment might not be one hundred percent HR-approved….”

John could only shake his head as his doubts multiplied.

Will casually pulled out his phone to check the time. “Heh. Only five.” Then, with more snide than valor, “Take heart, young warrior, you’ll get at least a half day of training before the enemy is at our gate.”

A retaliation for wasting time earlier that day, most likely.

They spent a few hours on the baseline expectations for John’s conduct and setting up a new phone for secure communication. The dark of the autumn evening arrived well before they concluded their business for the day, and it settled in with a heavy rain.

Will at least had the honor to give John a ride back home after dragging him out there. As they pulled up to the front entrance of the apartment complex, he had one last question for the night: “Forgetting something?”

“Huh?”

Will rolled his eyes in amusement. “I can never take people like you seriously when you try to act money-motivated—not for one second. And after you made such an aggressive statement about it, too… Ah, kids… Check your bank account, nimrod.”

The full weight of his foolishness pressed down as John realized he had never once pushed any sort of pay negotiation. He might as well have been an old door mat at a house party. In complete defeat, he pulled out his personal phone and up his account details. In what he could only attribute to divine protection, a considerable sum had been deposited into his account that day from some generically official sounding entity.

He said a quiet little prayer of thanks in his mind.

“Good for you that I’m such an upstanding pillar of society,” Will said with a nice helping of sarcastic hubris. “You won’t have to worry about rent or groceries anytime soon—not that you did anyway—but consider this the first of many lessons on how to survive in this line of work. Always look for leverage and never give it up for free.” And with a wink, “Reciprocal relationships are the ones that last after all.”

“I always thought the Feds were just stingy, not cutthroat.”

The mask of humor fell. “Any place can become cutthroat if you’re clumsy, and it’s not Mia and I you have to worry about now.”

It was a roundabout lesson, but it reminded John of an important truth: his new employer was not one to brag about in that town.

“Duly noted.” John climbed out of the car and lazily made his way through the rain as Will sped off.