The Law of Averages - Book 2: Chapter 162: Old Debts

“First things first,” Tawny said, producing a notebook and pen. “What’s the man’s name?”

He was still reclining in his ridiculous chair, legs kicked up over his grimy desk. The bulb in the ceiling fan flickered. An electrical buzzing filled the air. Dan awkwardly searched for a seat, before shrugging. He teleported back to his patio, snagged a lawn chair, and returned to the office. Tawny snorted as Dan planted the chair and plopped himself into it.

“Marcus Mercury,” Dan finally answered, completely certain that Tawny would not have heard of the man. Marcus’ heyday was over half a century ago, and he’d never been in the spotlight.

Tawny scribbled down the name and underlined it. “Physical description?”

“Um.” Dan paused, and thought back. He remembered how stooped and fragile the doctor looked when they’d first met. He remembered how young and vital he seemed the last time they’d spoke. “He’s a Natural who can change his appearance quite a bit, so…”

“Broad strokes is fine,” Tawny reassured him. “Plenty of folks around capable of changing physical appearance, but most people keep the basics the same. Height, gender, build, things like that.”

Dan nodded. That, he could provide. “I’d say just under six feet, lean, male. He favors lab coats and wears glasses.”

Tawny made a politely interested sound. “I assume you don’t know his place of residence?”

Dan shook his head. “He… moved recently. That’s part of the reason why I lost contact.”

“And you’re sure he has a phone?”

Dan nodded hesitantly, chewing at the corner of his lip. “I believe so, but I don’t know if it’s a cell phone or a land line.”

“Hm.” Tawny drummed his fingers against his thigh. “You have his old number?”

“I…” No. He didn’t. There was no cell service in space—though there was internet, somehow—and Marcus could always be found somewhere in the space station’s labs. Dan had never needed a way to call him. “I’ve got an old email address, but I don’t think he had a phone until recently.”

Tawny’s brow crinkled. “How old did you say this person was? We’re not talking about some kid, right?”

“He’s over ninety,” Dan replied flatly.

Tawny’s ears twitched. He slowly straightened in his chair, putting his feet back onto the floor. “Well that changes things,” he said, and stood up out of his chair. Dan watched him walk out from behind the desk and move to a dark corner of the room. He knelt down beside a wall grate and started to unscrew the cover. It came free with a screech of rusted metal, and Tawny placed the disgusting thing to the side. He reached into the opening, felt around for a moment, and came back out with a crusty, dusty laptop. He wiped his hand across it, looked at the layer of filth, then sneezed violently.

“That’s disgusting,” Dan noted, as Tawny emerged from the dust cloud looking significantly greyer. The former detective shook his head, blinking furiously, and dropped the laptop on his desk. He returned to the wall grate, fished around again, and emerged with an old power supply. He stepped quickly away from the wall, and Dan realized he’d been holding his breath.

“It’s been a while since I’ve used this,” Tawny panted, gasping for fresh air. He quickly found a wall socket and plugged in the laptop charger. “The station has access to more updated information, but I can’t use those resources on a favor for a friend. Besides, if he’s as old as you say, this way is probably better.”

He flipped open the laptop, and booted it up. An expression of pleasant surprise crossed his face as the screen came on.

“What is it?” Dan asked, trying to look at the screen while avoiding the drifting cloud of dust.

Tawny caressed the laptop like it was his lover. “This is my old PI laptop. It’s seen me through some difficult cases. More importantly, its got saved copies of every state’s yellow pages from 1957 until 1984. Those are the years that it expanded to list registered Naturals. There’s simply no way your guy hasn’t owned a phone in ninety years of living in America. For starters, you needed a contact number to register a Natural status, assuming he followed the law.” He regarded Dan curiously. “No judgement, but do you think he followed the law?”

He probably helped write that law, Dan thought, but he nodded instead. “Yeah. He was pretty big on following the law.”

“Excellent.” Tawny cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers. He looked down at his laptop screen, and started tapping away at the keyboard. “Is he from Texas?”

“…I’m not sure,” Dan admitted. “He certainly wasn’t living here recently.”

“Fair enough.” Tawny bobbed his head. “We’ll just check every state. You’re lucky someone made a search program to sift this crap, otherwise we’d be here for weeks.”

“Okay,” Dan agreed. He hesitated, but asked the question that’d been nagging at him. “Even if you get a hit, how’s a decades old phone number going to help us?”

“People are pretty predictable,” Tawny replied, tapping the enter key and leaning back in his chair. He met Dan’s eyes, his face in full teacher mode. “We like the familiar. We like keeping similar patterns. We like to be comfortable. The older you get, the more this tends to hold true. Broadly speaking. In other words, if he had the same number for thirty, forty, fifty years, it’s unlikely that he would be willing to change it. If he had the same service provider, it’s unlikely he would’ve gone with another. If he lived in the same area, it’s unlikely that he’d live elsewhere.”

“People like the familiar,” Dan echoed.

“Just so,” Tawny agreed. His computer beeped, and he glanced down. “We’ve got a hit.”

Dan scuttled around the desk to glance down at the computer.

“Massachusetts,” he read with some surprise. “I should have known.”

The listing was from 1959. Doctor Marcus Mercury, former professor at MIT, a Natural with the registered power of self-modification. Dan stared at the unassuming phrase. What an unremarkable description of a truly terrifying ability. It was meant to be shorthand, for citizens to know what kind of danger they were in if they lived nearby. Naturals were treated like sex offenders.

“There’s the phone number,” Tawny said, tapping the screen. He glanced at Dan. “You want to give it a try?”

Dan flinched back at the question. His jaw worked soundlessly, up and down. His eyes roamed the room, searching for a distraction or a clue or an answer. The overhead fan slowly spun, rocking back and forth in its cradle. The light flickered and buzzed. There was dust caked on the windowsill. The carpet was damp. He could smell must and mold with every inhalation. There was a strange ringing in his ears.

I don’t know what I want, Dan realized.

He flickered, falling into the Gap. The chill stole over him, numbing him, calming him. His emotions stabilized, whatever strange panic that had been building inside him was snuffed out like it’d been dumped in ice water. He stared out at the stars, the false nebula, the billion sparkling lights.

He returned to the dingy little office, and breathed out calm.

“No,” he decided. “I don’t think I’m ready for that conversation.” He needed to talk to Abby first, at minimum. “Can you ping the number somehow? Find out if it’s active?”

“I can track down the service provider,” Tawny admitted. “A few leading questions to their customer service line would probably get me a yes or no.”

“Let’s do that,” Dan decided. It’d been more than a year since he’d last seen Marcus Mercury. Their reunion could wait. “I just want to confirm that he’s alive and well.”

Nothing had fundamentally changed between the two of them. Dan had originally left because Marcus was performing dangerous experiments with forces outside of reality. He highly doubted the old man had changed his mind about such things. The Gap was not something to be blindly toyed with, and the complete lack of care that Marcus had shown, frightened Dan. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to reconnect with such a person.

Despite that, Marcus had helped Dan when nobody else had, or could. He’d provided him a home, a job, an education. Gratitude did not accurately encompass the depth of his feelings towards the ornery old man. If Marcus was around, Dan would do his best to return the favor.

It was only right.