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Time to try another angle of approach. “Ok? Sounds like a good way to expand your horizons.”

“Yeah, I get that but… I don’t know. I think I’ve run out of things to say.”

“Well, what did you pick to talk about?”

Felix thought again on what he wanted to accomplish.

He wanted to see a documentary he was going to have people from his media team work on for the previous year, he’d have it put together in a year from now.

Effectively giving him a year in retrospect, and a way to see the future.

Equipment(Siege of Tilen and Skipper City): A retrospective over the last year

Documentary made available.

Upgrade?(112,493,128,312,489,500)

It’s almost as high as when I tried to give someone else my own Powers. What the actual hell.

“I’m taking the position of allowing Skipper to take over, rather than fighting,” Eva said.

“Huh. That’s… definitely an interesting point of view. Let me think on it for a bit. Maybe let your subconscious chew at your assignment. And while that’s happening, let me throw a question at you,” Felix said.

“Sure! Is it what you’ve been working on?” Eva asked excitedly, bouncing up from her seat and walking over to his desk.

“Yep. So, you know what I did with the Fist, right?” Felix asked.

“Yeah! That was pretty cool. I never realized you could use your power as a way to view the future.”

Eva stepped up to the other side of his desk and picked up the pen she’d made for him. He kept it with him most of the time, and pulled it out whenever he sat at his desk.

“I’m trying to do something similar, but different. I want to see a documentary I’m going to have made in a year, about the previous year.”

“Uh… oh! I get it. That makes sense. Considering the way the Fist turned out, that should work, right?”

“And it can. It just costs enough points that I’d have to turn the entire gold reserve for the country into dust to do it. Which obviously isn’t possible.”

“Hm. That’s… ok. How can I help?”

“I think I’m missing something. The Fist was much further than a year out if I don’t miss my guess.”

“Yeah, but the Fist isn’t going to alter the actual future. If you had this completed, you’d be able to change, avoid, and alter everything that had already happened.”

“Fair point. What if I did it for two years instead of one…”

Felix paused to try just that, working through his power quickly.

“So?” Eva asked, her excitement clear in her voice.

“It uh… it only went up by about a hundred thousand points.”

“Ok, so if one year is that high in cost, but the year after isn’t, that means that something happens this year that is incredibly monumental,” Eva said, crossing her arms over her chest and nodding her head.

“Or apocalyptic,” Felix countered.

“Sure, that’s a possibility. But it could just as easily be that you somehow cured cancer or AIDS. I’d say that’s monumental enough to skew quite a bit of history if you changed it or avoided it.”

“Hmm. That’s… fair… I just don’t like it.”

“Why, because I said it?”

“No, because it’s optimistic. Optimism gets people killed.”

Eva laughed at that and shook her head. “Felix, I swear. You’re such a grump sometimes.”

Unable to help himself, Felix crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue sideways at her.

“You call it grump, I call it reality.”

“Grump, grump, grump. Grump-o-saurus-rex.”

“Har har. Fine. Go, get back to your assignment. You’ve made your point. I’ll just have to try again from another angle.”

The entire office churned into a sudden blazing red maelstrom of crackling power.

Felix shot to his feet at the same time as he slammed his hand down on the panic button.

Shimmering and growing denser, the red energy began to spiral rapidly in a circle.

Then everything exploded and Felix felt like his stomach was turned inside out and used as a stool at a dive bar.

When his vision cleared, Felix could see the stars above him, and the outlines of buildings ominously hanging over him.

Looking around, Felix realized he was in the middle of a street. An empty, barren street, full of wreckage and debris.

And he was naked.

Stark butt-naked.

“Felix, what happened?” Eva asked from behind him.

Taking a moment to glance over his shoulder, he saw Eva, naked, behind him in a similar position to his own.

“Don’t know. Questions later, action now. We need to get off the street. Immediately,” Felix ordered.

All around him were businesses that were burned out, looted, or simply destroyed.

“Mechanic’s shop, there,” Felix said, indicating the building.

Getting into a low crouch, Felix started making his way over.

“I’m naked!” Eva hissed.

Felix ignored her, focused entirely on getting out of the street. It didn’t matter where they were in Tilen, being on the street at night was asking to get shot by anyone with an itchy trigger finger.

Without hesitating, Felix entered through the broken door and went straight into the building. Taking account of his surroundings as he went, Felix felt rather certain that the building was unoccupied. No one would choose this location to hold out in since it had no roof, too many entrances, and was unlikely to have anything of value.

For the moment, it served his purpose perfectly.

Ducking into an office, Felix started to sort through the wreckage to see if he could find anything usable.

“Felix! What are you doing? Where are we? What happened?” Eva asked, entering the office behind him.

“Surviving, don’t know, don’t know. We need to arm ourselves and get clothes. After that, information gathering. Did you notice any street signs by the way? I didn’t see any,” Felix said, opening a desk drawer and sorting through it quickly.

“What? Street signs?”

“Yeah. I figure we’re somewhere in Tilen. If we know what the street is, that’ll help. Well, if we know the street, it will. If we don’t, not so much. But hey, information is information. Ah, a knife. That’s a start.”

Felix pulled out a six inch folding knife from the bottom of the drawer and flicked it open. Seeing the action was working, he thumbed the locking mechanism and closed it.

He set it on the desk and went back to digging.

“Felix, I… I don’t—”

“Two options, Eva. Sit down, be silent, and get yourself together. Or start helping me dig through this office. We’ll have to clear this building out completely and then figure out which way to go from there. Wait, do I own this knife now?” Felix asked curiously.

If he did, he could use his points to modify it into something better. Or clothes, even.

A quick check revealed that the knife did indeed belong to him now. Which meant the owner was dead and had no will or heirs, abandoned it willingly, or… something else entirely.

Smiling, Felix pulled up his point screen.

Received

Spent

Remaining

Daily Allotment

150

0

150

Resources Inaccessible/Blocked

Eva Adelpha

4,900

4,900

0

+ Loyalty Bonus

1,010

0

1,010

DAILY TOTAL

6,060

4,900

1,160

Staring at the point screen, Felix had to fight to keep himself together.

Something seriously wrong happened. Very, very wrong. Ok, keep it together. We still have some points.

Sliding Eva’s points away from herself, and into his pool, Felix continued in his search for resources.