Discussions on the Storm-Trashed Beach

After the storm, the beach looks terrible. I do notice the sky and the water both have a haunting beauty to them, clear and yet simultaneously abuzz with the recent winds, but the beach itself is covered with garbage. Literally. In the distance, on another beach, I can see some locals who didn’t evacuate starting the cleanup. As long as we aren’t too obvious, we should be fine for a few hours. “Looks clear enough to me,” I say to the others.

Lyle shakes his head. “Some of us should be careful about big things we might do,” he says, “Looks like some people beach-cleaning down the way.”

We nod, and Seleste begins. “Alright, so our current working theory is that our abilities come from some combination of what we were feeling the moment of the light washing over us, our past, and some fundamental force of nature or the world or something. But I haven’t worked out how or what or why. Alyson, how extensive is that little hologram thing you mentioned in the closet?”

“Fairly, but I don’t know exactly,” she admits.

“Great,” the journalist replies with a smile. “You’re with me, we’re going to be recreating my timeline board. Once it’s complete as it is right now in my room, then everyone else can start peppering in the information they know. I’m hoping with a complete timeline from all of our perspectives, with the information from the elevator, we can figure this thing out.”

Aly nods and focuses, holding out her hand and a whiteboard appears on the beach beside us, translucent. “Okay, so the first board started centered on a question, where I did several things, then time seemed to reset. So there’s a large line across here,” she begins to explain the board to Aly, gesturing at the image floating in the air. As she talks, the image begins to change, updating with each word and slowly coming to match what I remember from her room.

Mister Hernandez says quietly to the group, “Hey, my wife and I are going to go over to the water, to try to see what on earth we might actually be able to do other than have nightmares and a child that seems to know anything.”

“Of course,” I reply politely before adding the question, “Any reason in particular?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, but it sort of feels right. And in case it’s big, we don’t want to disturb the young women making whiteboards.”

It feels right. Interesting. I wonder if that’s like me and the weather. The oceans are a key element of the world, after all. The pair head off. Hilary goes over to Winsten and asks, “Hey, would you mind taking me underground? I want to try what on earth else I can do with the lights.”

Win looks over at Lyle, who shrugs. And then the college kid replies, “Sure. But I’m not sure how helpful it is, because we can’t really see anything down there.”

She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter, I need practice turning it on and off, and I felt a lot more power surging through me this morning while I was glowing than I do now,” she explains, “So I want to see what that actually was.”

Win sighs. “Fair enough,” he says, holding out his hand. Hil takes it, and the two people begin to sink into the ground. Mikey watches them sink, then turns to the rest of us. “Any idea how long this is going to take?” he asks quietly while gesturing towards the pair of women recreating a room from memory.

“It’s a pretty extensive thing,” Kat begins.

I add, “And they haven’t even gotten to the second board.”

Mikey sighs. “Alright, so it’ll be a minute,” he sighs out, and lies down on the sand. A crab approaches him and he looks at it confused.

I stick with Kat. “So, do you think the stepping to the waterline is related to the hallways, or the ocean?”

Kat shakes her head. “I haven’t really felt any opening hallways, but how she describes it and myself are a little different.”

“There is the other option, too,” Mister Jennings adds. He’s holding his rifle, then it vanishes in flames.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Jennings shrugs. “Didn’t you notice that they got a little weird when we talked about our theories on origins. Maybe there’s something they worry might be true.” He is right. I didn’t think it was too important, because of all the weird chaos around today and last night, but maybe there was something more.

Stepping back, I shake my head to myself. Because that reminded me, if our theories are correct, I have nothing connecting me to my past. Kat notices my concern, and pulls me aside. “What is it, Jackson?”

“Nothing. Just reminded me that my life is meaningless, even in this context.”

She looks concerned and confused. “What do you mean?” she asks quietly.

“Everyone has some connection to their past, right. That’s what we’re basing things off of. But I don’t, as far as I can tell.”

We sit down as her confusion turns to genuine concern. “Well, tell me about your life. What do you think you should be able to do?”

I start to explain my life. “Well, I went to school, intended to go into law but did poorly on the LSATs. I got my actuarial sciences degree instead. Didn’t do great things for my mental health, so I got my accounting certification and changed careers. Was a fine accountant, not great, not enthusiastic, but good enough. That said, when a couple of the firm’s clients went bankrupt in the same quarter, they downsized me and a couple other of us. Jokes on them, though, because they’re in a messy lawsuit now, while I’m enjoying my severance package here while I figure out my next step.”

She nods. And then asks, “Any idea what the next was going to be. You know, before the elevator crash?”

I shrug. “Not really. I was probably going to have to go back to actuary, because the lawsuit, while super funny karmically, did have the unfortunate side effect of making me much harder to hire as an accountant.”

Kat is seriously thinking about it. “And you don’t have anything with money, right?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. I mean, we got the rooms for free, but I assume that’s more to do with the whole taking charge thing than whatever else. Might be wrong though.”

She bites her lower lip, thinking. “Wait, actuary, that’s just like odds and stats, right?” she begins to think of something.

“Sure, I guess,” I reply, “I mean, a bit of an oversimplification, but that’s the gist.”

She nods. “But I assume the odds of those big, unrelated clients going bankrupt at the same time is pretty low?”

“Not great,” I answer the rhetorical question.

“What if that’s it?” she says. “Lots of unlucky stuff has happened to you, and around you. Odds defying stuff, like your firing happening just before the lawsuit.”

“So, what, like, I can change the odds of stuff or something?” I ask, “How do I test that?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, I have no idea about that. I just think it would make sense.”

I think about it. It would make sense, I suppose. What if I focused on someone and just, what, thought bad luck. I can’t help but chuckle at the thought. My chuckle makes her relax, the concern starting to fade from her face. Why not try, I think. Not any of us, in case it actually works. Because unluckiness inflicted on one of us probably would be bad for us all. So I turn to look at the group out on the beach far off. Looking at the tall man, mostly just because he is the most obvious person so I should be able to notice anything odd, and I focus on his odds. I can see the chart like an excel spreadsheet I used to work with. And I add a few little weight factors, shifting the odds to problematic. Looking back at Kat, I say, “I think you might be right, but we should be sure it’s not just imagination.”

“What did you do?” she asks, concern tinting her voice once more, though I feel like it isn’t concern for me.

I smile. “Listen, if it isn’t my imagination, it shouldn’t hurt him unless he gets into a fight. Or something bad happens unrelated to my actions.”

“Funnily enough, you didn’t answer me,” she says with a little shove.

I gesture with my thumb, “See that tall guy over there?”

She nods. “Sure, not well, but he’s big enough to see.”

I shrug. “Well, I thought about the odds, and I messed with them, changed the weights a bit. So some unlucky but not strictly dangerous things should start happening to him.” As I say that, he trips. “No proof that’s my fault,” I half joke. It’s only a half joke, because one tripping incident isn’t really proof of anything.

As I say this, rising up from the ground beside the reclining Mikey is Hilary and Winsten. The latter of which is shaking his head before heading over to check in on Alyson. Hilary laughs. “So, fun fact,” she says, “Underground my eyes start to glow and I can sort of see through a little of the ground.”

“And the power?” Mikey asks.

“Not sure, but I felt like the light wanted to rush from me in a dangerous way,” she said. “What about you?”

He shrugs. “Crab wanted to help me, so I told it to find a piece of metal trash, and it did.”

I interject. “Wait, what?”

Mikey shrugs. “Crab came over and clearly indicated it wanted to help. Figured I’d see what it could do, so I asked it for a thing, and it delivered.”

“And this is normal for crabs?” Kat asked, clearly getting why I’m confused.

Mikey shakes his head. “Not crabs, no. But I train birds, so it’s not too weird,” he explains.

“Past thing,” I say, “What else can you do?”

“A bit,” he says, mysteriously. “Nothing too impressive, though.

“Show them the razors,” Hil says, encouraging her partner to show off. She looks at us, “Super cool and useful.”

“Fine,” he says, and with a flick of his wrist, a shadowy straight razor appears in his hand.

“Kind of like Jennings and his rifle,” I say, nodding towards the old veteran.

“Maybe,” Mikey replies. As he moves it around, the razor moves oddly, not like a metal object but more like a thing of shadow. So not so much like Mr. Jennings. Mikey does offer, “Though it isn’t my razor, and it’s surprisingly sharp.” To demonstrate, he places it on his skin and shaves a tiny amount of hair from his forearm with ease. Then, once demonstrated, he opens up his hand and slowly the knife falls, much slower than gravity, until it hits the sand and dissipates into Mikey’s own shadow. Odd, but perhaps where she has some connection to light, so does he to its absence. Like a yin and yang sort of thing.

As this finishes, Seleste does say, “Hey, if you guys are free, we have the yesterday slash this morning timeline board completed. Feel free to look at it and think about your own stuff while we finish up the life histories board.”

Mikey and Hil, as well as the college kids all head over. Eventually, after a hushed discussion, so do the Hernandezes. Leaving only the three of us who’ve already contributed our information to the board waiting for it to be done. Mister Jennings looks at me. “So,” he asks me, “How unlucky do you think you made that guy?”

I shrug. “Nothing I did should endanger his life directly, but it might be pretty miserable. Why?”

“Because he just fell into a sandhole almost deep enough to cover his entire body.”

Both Kat and I whip our heads around just as he starts to quietly yell. Well, quietly for us, given the distance. “I can’t move my arms,” he’s yelling loud enough to be heard several beaches away.

Kat looks at me. “I think that’s enough proof, no?” she says. It’s not a question. “Now, can you undo it?”

I sigh. “I can certainly try,” I offer. I think about the numbers again, and I try to undo what I did. Unfortunately, it doesn’t result in the exact same spreadsheet as before, as most actuarial probability is based at least in part on past activity and probability. That said the distribution returns to roughly a normal one, albeit slightly worse off overall. “That should work well enough. A bit worse for wear and doesn’t help him out of the collapsed sand at all, but the probability of it happening again should be back to normal.”