"Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new."
—GOD EMPEROR, LETO II
The house lay in weekend stillness—pipes ticking, refrigerator sighing, the city's distant sirens softened by coastal fog. Paul moved in deliberate silence, bare feet finding the marks he had chalked on his bedroom carpet: a square into which the universe was momentarily compressed
He began with slow Hindu squats—thirty, then forty—letting tendons warm in orderly sequence; feel the ligaments lengthen, the accompanying litany went. Push‑ups followed, hands offset each set to recruit different fibers, core locked so tight the spine felt fused. Pain bloomed early—yesterday's micro‑tears protesting their reconstruction—but he greeted it the way farmers greet first light: confirmation that life, and work, continue.
Three weeks to competence, he reminded himself. Seven to sufficiency. Anything less courts disaster.
After burpees came isometric holds against the door‑frame, then five minutes skimming shadow‑boxing: elbows tucked, hip whip measured, each strike a metronome for breath. The duffel bag—stuffed with textbooks and duct‑taped firm—served as a sandbag substitute. He burrowed hooks into its flank until shoulders burned molten.
Only when muscle fibrils jittered on the cusp of failure did he set the weight down and adopt the lotus. Three capsules clacked against molars—protein hydrolysate, magnesium citrate, a multivitamin dense with B‑complex. He drank a palmful of water, then, eyes shuttered, triggered the slow tide of autonomic command: capillaries dilated, liver pathways primed for uptake. A whispered litany guided blood to stomach lining, coaxing peristalsis, nudging secretion of digestive enzymes. Metabolism surged—small furnace flaring brighter—then subsided to a banked glow.
The room smelled of tin and adolescent sweat. He savored it, then rolled to his feet and sought the shower. Cold first to arrest inflammation, hot to loosen fascia. At the mirror, he noted fresh lines of definition along the abdomen, the nascent V of obliques. Three weeks, he repeated, before this body ceases to be a hindrance.
Pulling a fresh shirt over his bare torso, he collapsed his weary shell by the desk by his bed. The desktop hummed, a loyal familiar. Paul logged in beneath Greg's ancient handle—XxVoid_CowboyxX—then slipped the persona aside like a mask. The Parahumans Online interface scrolled past half‑hearted arguments about Endbringer early‑warning systems and a flame‑war over HeroClix rarity.
A new thread popped into existence then:
[BREAKING] — Brockton Bay Central Bank Robbed; Two Wards Hospitalized (Vista, Kid Win)
He clicked.
✥✥✥
PHO Public Boards › Events & Sightings › Brockton Bay■ 11:46 ►Dockworker_Catholic
Anyone else hearing chatter about BB Central Bank getting hit this morning?
Saw ambulances & PRT vans rolling code‑three down 45th.
■ 11:47 ►HBIC
Yeah. My girlfriend is a nurse. She said Vista and Kid Win were rolled in on stretchers. It was bad. Out already though—Panacea fix.
■ 11:47 ►Moderator_Blackhole
Please keep speculation tagged [RUMOR]. Posting unverified medical info violates Section 8. Final warning.
■ 11:48 ►Lifesaver
Word is Undersiders. Anyone confirm?
■ 11:51 ►CrackedLens
[CCTV] mirror link: 3 mins, pulled from internal. Watch fast.
..VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (partial)..
0:07 Hellhound exits lobby atop mutated dog.
0:15 Shadow Stalker attacks Grue.
0:21 Smokescreen obscures teller line. Gallant swarmed by mass.
0:55 Vista compressing parking lot, struck by unknown projectile
1:04 Kidwin throws sphere—flash, concussive.
1:20 Camera feed terminates.
■ 11:58 ►GrueIsStew
link dead. "DMCA request by Parahuman Response Team." Nice try, Big Brother.
■ 12:01 ►Mannerborn
Kids fighting kids and the adults hide the evidence. Stay classy, Protectorate.
■ 12:04 ►Moderator_Blackhole
Thread temp‑locked for spam, off‑topic, TOS §8 medical leaks.
THREAD LOCKED BY MODERATOR_BLACKHOLE (12:04 EST): ongoing investigation.
✥✥✥
Paul leaned back from the screen, replaying the stolen footage in his save file eleven times, each iteration isolating a different vector: a brindled mastiff the size of a panel truck thrashing one of the heroes like a ragdoll; a swirl of darkness engulfing another; the timing between Vista's last bend and Kid Win's flashbang. The Undersiders and the Wards. Amateurs, he noted, but competent enough. Worth logging.
Nothing else in the forum scroll offered comparable yield. He archived the video, then powered down. Rising from his seat, he packed a duffel with choice objects: collector pins of New Wave's launch year, an autographed Gallant poster, Greg's vintage console and controllers. The bag filled, he tossed it over his shoulder and made his way downstairs.
There, in the living room, he caught Tom in a recliner, feet propped, nose buried in a novel. The older boy glanced up from the paperback as Paul descended the stairs. "Where are you off to?" he asked.
"Getting rid of some stuff," Paul answered, adjusting the duffel strap. Tom's eyes narrowed, curiosity wrestling apathy; apathy won. Without another word, Paul stepped out of the apartment.
Outside, fog clung to the streets, silvering cracked asphalt. Paul mapped the route in silent recitation—five blocks east, four south, past a graffiti‑flayed mural of All‑Seeing Aegis. Neon sign flickered amid half‑shuttered storefronts: MAX CASH LOANS. The pawn shop sat square in Empire territory, but Paul's aryan features and unassuming gait made him background noise.
Inside, stale cigar smoke mingled with ozone from old cathode televisions. The proprietor—a balding, wiry man, gave the goods a once over from behind wire‑mesh. A price was made. Paul matched gaze with Bene Gesserit stillness, reading pulse at throat, micro‑expressions around nostril. With a smile, he shook his head.
"Sixty?" The owner tried again, raising by ten dollars.
Paul touched two fingers to the dusty counter. "The pin is a limited run, first month of New Wave's debut. Gallant's hologram signature intact. Console's a launch model—copper shielding, fetches triple overseas. Two grand for the lot, and you make your margin back within a week."
A bead of sweat traced the shopkeeper's temple. Another micro‑pulse at the throat—he believes the figure. The man coughed, tapped his calculator, grudging. "Hundred‑ten for the pin, and I pretend the serial numbers weren't filed."
"One‑fifty," Paul countered.
Numbers rose, stalled, rose again. When goods and cash finally changed hands, sixteen crisp hundreds and a bent ten nestled in Greg's wallet.
✥✥✥
He felt the tail as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk: cadence too regular, breath mist caught in peripheral vision. Four pursuers, adolescent male, one limping slightly. Paul let their vector settle, then deviated down an alley rich with the sour smell of damp cardboard.
They followed.
Oscar led—neck still bruised, pride more so. Three companions flanked him: one broad‑shouldered, one tall and jittery, one moving with a thief's balance.
"I thought it was you," Oscar sneered. "Got a haircut?"
"Yes," Paul replied. "What do you want?"
"Payback," Oscar snarled. "Julia dumped me because of you. Hand the cash over, or we turn your face inside out."
"Walk away, Oscar," Paul offered, voice mild. "You don't want this."
Knuckles popped—an animal's language of intent. Paul exhaled, feeling the weight of inevitability settle upon his shoulders like desert dusk. Conflict, he knew, was a calculus of wills; to end it here, he must tip the balance so decisively that no continued equation could form. Oscar had revealed himself incapable of accepting a single defeat. Therefore, Paul understood, the response must rupture expectation—must be so vast, so disproportionate, that escalation would become an impossibility, a thing smothered in its own shadow.
In that instant of measured breath, the future tilted. Another sigh escaped him. So soon? he mused in distaste. The thought fell like a knife, sealing Oscar's fate—and Paul accepted the verdict. He set the duffel aside and stepped into the narrow center of the passage where brick walls stole the reach advantage from larger limbs.
—Intention steers energy—
The one on the left lunged first—predictable straight punch, elbow high. Paul slipped inside, heel to instep, palm to jaw, guiding momentum past him. Elbow spear to solar plexus ended the broad‑shouldered boy's contribution. A wrist‑twist dropped the jittery tall one; patella pressure kept him gasping. The thief lasted longest—two feints, a grab, then torque at the shoulder joint until tendon barked surrender. All three blacked out from the pain.
Oscar stood frozen, courage evaporating in the scent of his friends' fates. He remained still, white around the eyes. Butterfly knife finally opened with a metallic snap. Paul approached, posture unhurried, a surgeon toward anesthetized flesh.
"Stop!" Oscar squeaked, brandishing the blade yet retreating two paces. "I'll cut—"
One stride closed distance. Paul seized his collar—mirror image of their meeting in Winslow's restroom—and forced the taller boy to kneel, arm locked, fingers numb under joint pressure.
"Please—"
"SILENCE," the Voice interrupted. Paul closed his eyes, listening to heartbeats settle into trained cadence. Water carves stone by insistence. One drop at a time, unrelenting. When his eyes opened, they did so with renewed resolve.
"I WILL ASK AND YOU WILL ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Oscar's untrained mind offered no resistance. "Yes."
"Good. Now tell me, Oscar, who else have you spoken about me with?"