“I think that I owe you an apology.”

Chris spoke under his breath as he closed his bedroom door behind him and began to unpack his duffel full of clean clothes. His lips barely moved, his vocal folds subvocalizing in a way that would have created language, had he used any air. No human could hear anything he said this way, he barely looked like he was talking at all.

For what?

“When you showed me the system deer, and it attacked, I assumed the worst. I… thought that the system animals were going to start attacking everyone.”

There was a pause. The silence stretched until Chris finished putting away his clothes. He knelt in front of the dresser, thinking.

I understand why you came to that conclusion. This clarifies your reactions considerably. I would also apologize for…

“No, I get it. You’re not omniscient, you couldn’t have known.”

Chris stood up, looked around his room, and sighed. It was messy. It beyond messy, it was gross. Ah well, at least he had the wherewithal and time to clean now. He cracked open his window and turned on the fan.

“Were you listening to the conversation earlier with Benji and Max?”

Yes.

“So you heard Max suggest a power for me, then. What do you think?”

I believe it would suit you, yes.

“Not what I meant. Is it feasible?”

Possibly. Your period of personal assistance has ended. I can no longer provide advancement plans and shifts specialized to you.

“So now I’m only limited by my imagination?”

Correct.

“That sucks. My imagination is terrible.”

Your imagination was terrible.

Chris ignored this as he procured a trash bag and started throwing away trash, year old chemistry notes, and various other odds and ends. He pondered for a moment.

“You can still offer me general advice though, right? Steer me a little?”

Correct. As the purpose of this exercise is to progress your species, if I were influence your development with alien ideas, it would destroy your racial identity. Refining ideas you already have is within my parameters.

“Alright, I’ll just talk through it, then. Stop me if there’s anything you can refine.” Chris paused his trash inquisition for a moment and thought, then resumed.

“The way I see it, there are three parts to Multiple Man’s power. Specificity is the name of the game if we want to keep the point cost low, so let’s break it down. First is the ability to absorb kinetic energy.”

Kinetic?

“Kinetic, you know, the energy of motion. Car rolling down a hill, potential turns into…” Chris stopped again. “There’s no reason it has to be kinetic, is there?”

How Sarah managed to convey a sense of smugness without words was beyond him. Maybe it was all in his head. Heh.

“Alright, first part is the ability to absorb energy. The second is the ability to store it. I need some kind of battery that can store ridiculous amounts of energy without hurting me.”

Sarah remained silent at that. Maybe he was on the right track. Maybe it didn’t matter. Who cares, execution comes later. Ideas first.

“Third part is using the energy to make clones that act independently and I can reabsorb. Now this one, I’m having trouble with. It just seems too calorically expensive. There’s no way that I could create an entirely separate body, no matter how much energy I had!”

I believe that I can help you more directly with this. You cannot hope to understand the mechanism that your shifts use to function. You are a member of a Tier Zero civilization that still believes the force of gravity is immutable.

“Didn’t you say that specificity makes shifts more effective for the point cost? Now I’m just supposed to give up and go general because I can’t figure it out?”

Duplication 0/X (1000)

Duplicate. Requires a massive amount of energy to initiate, then maintain.

Specificity in function, not in mechanism. You still need to understand the intended function. Your Speeded Perception and Reaction shift, for example. How does it work?

“It…” Chris surveyed the room. It was orderly. Not clean, by any stretch, but everything was in its proper place. It was far too late to vacuum. He sighed. “Point taken. Okay, I need to know exactly what I want it to do. Do I want to copy multiple man's power, or use bloody shadow clone jutsu, there has to be some way…”

Wheels spun in his mind as he rolled to the ground floor bathroom. He cleaned on autopilot, scrubbing and wiping, tossing the towels and washcloths into the laundry hamper. Eventually his wheels, both in his mind and in his feet ground to a halt.

“I need to be smarter”.

Danger, Christopher.

“No, this… this is it.” Chris rested on his knees and the wheels started turning again and he slowly slid back into to motion. “Limiting factors, this game is all about limiting factors. Right now, I’m being constrained by my cleverness. I'm thinking in circles, chasing my tail.”

Care. You are very attached to your humanity, it would be a shame if you were to lose it.

Chris blinked. Then again, slowly, and he shuddered. “Thanks. If I stick to flat efficiency improvements, nothing that would change my thought processes, just speed them up, would I be alright?”

He hadn’t considered a HAL scenario. He couldn’t lose his values, his empathy, the things that make him… human.

Use your best judgement, Christopher. Continue thinking through the implications of your actions. You are not playing a game.

****

“Chris, what are you doing?”

Chris paused in his task as he heard the front door shut and threw a handful of disinfecting wipes into the trash bag at his side.

“Hey Benji. Lab keep you late?”

“Yeah, I had to redo a whole trials worth of samples, they got spoiled cause…” He tossed his bag and coat up onto the pegs by the door. “You’re deflecting. Nice work. Are you… cleaning?”

“Yeah, wiping down the extractor fan over the stove. It tends to collect oil.”

“Huh. Not that it doesn’t need it, but why? Usually you do the laundry and Max and I do the cleaning.”

Status

Ongoing Effects: Slight Bruising (Left Arm)

Shifts: Intelligent Design, Speeded Per. and React. (Focus Dependent) 9/X (60)

Skills: Running 6, Boxing 5, Endurance 4, Self-Control 4(1), Flexibility 3, Meditation 3, Cleaning 2(2), Pain Tolerance 2, Driving 2(1), Knife Fighting 1

Unallocated: 4 points

Chris smirked. “Just felt like cleaning, I guess. Also, have you noticed that our house has a smell?” He knelt and started digging bakeware out of the drawer under the oven.

Ben leaned up against the wall of the kitchen and crossed his arms. “Never had a very good nose. Thought you didn’t either. Why, you have something to say about my cleaning skills?” His tone cut through Chris’s reverie like a razor blade, but when he looked up, Ben’s eyes were dancing.

Chris barked out a laugh. “It’s a little bit musty. Its… mostly cooking oil, stale coffee, and guy sweat. Houses really soak us up, huh? Almost like they’re living things.”

Ben’s eyes flashed. “Deflecting again. You’re getting better at it, though. That country air really did you good, huh?”

Chris very deliberately went back to his cleaning, wiping out the drawer maybe more thoroughly than strictly necessary. “Yeah, it really did. Is it that obvious?”

“To anyone that knows you, yeah. You going to tell me what happened?” His voice was guarded, measured, very out of character for Ben. “You don’t need to.”

“No, its fine.” He continued wiping, and silence took shape between them like condensation accumulating into a drop at the bottom of a glass. “Would you believe that I was randomly selected to be a test subject for an alien support system supposedly meant to elevate us to the level of our fellow species in the universe?”

“Huh.” The drop fell, and Chris ran out of nooks in the drawer to wipe. “Really?”

Inelegant, but it captured the sentiment of the moment fairly well. Chris’ response was equally florid.

“Yup.”

“Cool.” Bens face slid back into the grin that he wore so often that it was effectively his neutral expression. “I assume you’re going to tell me all about it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will, but Benji.” The altered human rose to his feet with fluid, dancers grace. His eyes seemed to burn as his shoulders set and his arms clasped behind his back. To Ben’s eyes he looked utterly in control, almost regal. “No one hears about this except Max, you, and the Rogues.”

Benjamin Allain, one of Chris’s best friends in the world, returned his steely gaze with manic fire. Benji’s grin widened until it threatened to shatter like a brittle skin of ice over a pond.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”