The Law of Averages

Book 2: Chapter 186: Paradise

Dan waited for about an hour and a half as messages were passed up and down the chain, and responsibility was bandied about. He assumed the higher-ups of the DCPD were a little more territorial than Mustache and Beard, and weren't keen on simply handing over jurisdiction to the FBI. Unfortunately, Eddie Charleston had yet to commit any crimes in the District of Columbia (that anyone could prove), so there was no real cause for the local police to get at him. He was a federal fugitive, and thus, belonged to the FBI. Only they could obtain the necessary warrant to search the Evo Church.

Speaking of the Evo Church, Dan spent most of the wait pondering if they had a mole inside the department or not. His initial assumption was obviously yes, but after speaking to Beard and Mustache, Dan now suspected sheer apathy was the strongest factor at play. The church was an obvious cult, but it was also incredibly wealthy and surprisingly popular given what it preached.

They were completely open about their acceptance of Naturals, and the power of cosmic radiation. Some part of their popularity had to be a consequence of the People's resurgence, but the church had been in existence for decades. They'd remained a pillar of the city for all those years, mostly immune to the propaganda pushed by Vigilante Act and the violence that had followed.

Actually... the existence of the Evo Church, and its consistent popularity, put things in a new perspective for Dan. This was the capitol of the United States. Right here, in the heart of things, was a church dedicated to the spread and maintenance of cosmic energy. Sure, they coached it in odd terms, and yeah, there was some goofy shit about aliens thrown in there, but the main thrust remained. It proved that the country was not so united in its ideals as Dan had once assumed.

It only made sense, Dan supposed. The People couldn't have lasted as long as they had if everyone was hostile to their ideas. Likewise, Senator Madison would have been voted out of office long ago, given his outspoken distaste for the Vigilante Acts. There must be an entire group of people who believed as they did, but were overshadowed by the enormous cultural shift of the sixties and seventies.

Anastasia and her allies had taken over the government, squashed the opposition, consolidated power, and spread their influence, but more and more Dan was realizing that their hold on society was nowhere near as strong as they pretended it to be. The pendulum was beginning to swing in the other direction, as atrocities were doled out on both sides. Things would reach a breaking point, eventually.

Fear could only be sustained for so long, before it became commonplace. Widescale disasters were an accepted part of life in Dimension A. An entire generation, raised up knowing that they could be ended at any point by some lunatic who lucked into laser beams and had a really bad morning. At some point, you became numb to it all just to function. The fear and propaganda pushed by Anastasia and her ilk was now working against them. There was no more fear to be found. It was all used up. Now, the citizens wanted to know what Naturals could do to help them. They wanted to know if the old ways, the ones their grandparents still whispered about, were actually better.

Was life any better, when Champion walked the world?

Dan was now in the unfortunate position of opposing his own interests, being a Natural himself, for the sole reason that the other side of the aisle was headed by a literal terrorist. Worse still, he wasn't entirely sure if perspectives would shift, even if Echo was revealed to be the mastermind behind it all. If Champion was dead, would things go back to where they were? He didn't think so. The question had been raised, and society wanted an answer: Could things be different?

Or this could all be Dan's wild speculations. He really, really hoped he was wrong. Unfortunately, the mere existence of the Evo Church was a strong point in favor of his theory, at least in his mind. It made it all the more important to damage their reputation in the public's eye. Harboring a criminal, one who had assaulted the great and glorious Gregoir Pierre-Louise? That was a crime the press could not overlook.

It made it all the more puzzling that they'd accepted Eddie Charleston into their ranks. His mind circled back to his theory of a mole in the DCPD. It made sense, Dan thought, and the nagging sense of paranoia had him donning a pair of reflective shades to use as a portal surface. It made him look like one of those idiots who wore dark sunglasses indoors, but some sacrifices were worth making.

Dan sat quietly in his chair as the police department bustled about him. He carefully opened a doorway inside the lens of the sunglasses, making sure to face it inwards. The other end of the portal opened up inside the Evo Church's bunk room, revealing an almost pitch black bed, and a sleeping Charleston. The only light came from a crack beneath the door, and the gym beyond. Shadows moved back and forth, but nothing frantic, nothing indicating alarm.

Dan relaxed, several parts of him unclenching. His shoulders slumped down, and he slouched in his chair, throwing one leg sideways across the other, resting his ankle against his knee. This was how the FBI agent found Dan, melting into a puddle of his own design, one eye on the sleeping Charleston, the other staring vacantly at the ceiling. Dan's veil picked up the expensive leather shoes as they stopped outside the little cubicle he'd been stashed in, but he didn't react until he heard a throat clearing.

Dan glanced up and found a stern-faced woman of about thirty, looking back at him. She wore a suit and dark slacks, with a deep blue tie. Her blonde hair was trimmed short, almost an army cut, and there was a prominent scar running from the corner of her lips, down across her chin. She frowned down at Dan.

"Is this the witness?" she asked the officer escorting her.

It was Beard, who answered the query it with a nervous nod.

Dan took a moment to right himself, and shut down his portal. He pulled off his sunglasses and stood up, extending his hand for a shake.

"Daniel Newman," he greeted.

The agent made a sort of noncommittal noise, but accepted the handshake and returned with, "Carver."

She pulled away, stepping back and pulling out a boxy device from her pocket. She pressed her thumb against a small indentation on the surface, and it unfolded like one of those origami fortune tellers. The box suddenly was a tablet, which lit up and took a brief scan of her face.

Dan watched it with undisguised interest. Even after all this time, some of the technology in Dimension A still took him by surprise. He saw her pull up some sort of recording program, then flick it off to the side. A database of names was pulled up afterwards, and a keyboard appeared. Agent Carver noticed him watching, and angled the screen gently away from him.

"Please describe what you witnessed," she ordered, terse and formal.

Dan repeated his story, keeping it short and sweet. He kept it light on details, though was prepared to give more. The only real way to prove he was lying was for the Evo Church to give access to its surveillance system, which they would never do. Besides, his own abilities made tracking him by cameras a tricky proposition unless they had zero blind spots. Dan habitually teleported everywhere he went, so catching him walking from one place to another was nearly impossible.

Agent Carver's expression stayed fixed for almost his entire explanation, as she tapped away on her tablet. Looking him up, Dan assumed. He was deeply curious as to what the federal database had to say about him. Between Anastasia classifying the shit out of it, and whatever misplaced competence Rawls had conjured up about him, it had to be a true masterpiece of fiction. Dan could tell the exact moment Carver read over his file, because her eyes widened minutely, and flicked between the tablet and himself.

Yeah, Dan thought. I really don't look the part. He could see the dissociation taking place in real time, as Agent Carver's brain fought to reconcile what she was seeing with whatever she was reading. Finally, trust in the database won out. She origami'd the tablet back into its cube shape, and slipped it into her jacket pocket.

"Okay, Mr. Newman," she said, still oozing professionalism. "You have impressive credentials, and I think your statement is more than enough to justify a task force."

Dan's forced his eyebrows to stay unraised. The Fourth Amendment wasn't much of an obstacle in Dimension A. Whenever superpowers came into play, most laws were simply thrown out the window in favor of an expedient response to threats. Illegal search and seizure only became an issue when nothing of substance was found. Essentially, when operating under specific circumstances (almost exclusively regarding Villains), the feds could invade private property, and use what they found to post-hoc justify the search.

But just because something was technically legal, didn't make it politically tricky. The Evo Church was a powerful entity in D.C., and Agent Carver seemed all too eager to kick the hornet's nest. Dan briefly considered if the feds had some kind of internal bias fueling this decision, then decided he didn't care. The Evo Church was manufacturing Naturals in their basement, and were using a lobotomized mind-controller on their flock of cultists for who knew what purposes. They needed to go down, hard and fast.

So, Dan was about to be party to what would be considered a gross violation of rights in his home dimension. On his word alone, armed gunman were going to invade a place of worship, search out a mentally ill man, and drag him out of the building in handcuffs.

Dan sighed.

Just another day in paradise.