The Law of Averages

Book 2: Chapter 11: Castle Doctrine

Dan floated in t-space, seething with rage.

Someone had just shot at him! At his friends! At his house! Possibly several someones! His first instinct was to jump next to the car and do his best to murder the inhabitants within, damn the consequences. He clamped down on that, hard, before his navigator could follow through on the errant impulse. Appearing beside or within an SUV containing an unknown number of men with guns would almost certainly earn Dan a bullet to the face. And every body part below it, just for good measure.

No. Dan needed to be smart about this. Or, failing that, at least not actively stupid. He had all the time in the world to think and to plan. He'd stay in t-space until he came up with something reasonable and responsible. His friends weren't going anywhere, and they were safe besides.

Abby was fine. She was in the kitchen, far away from the danger. Connor had managed to drag both himself and Freya inside the house. Bullets would be flying, but Dan's home was bulletproof! It'd take more than a few dickheads with Uzis to damage his castle! He just needed to shut the door. It opened inwards so Dan only needed to boot his friends out of the way and slam the thing shut. Then everyone would be safe.

Well, for a few moments anyway. Who knew what kind of firepower was packed away in that SUV. Upgrades threw everything out of balance. Mutates were even worse, to say nothing of naturals. Literally anything could be waiting in that big black suburban. Dan couldn't even guess. There was no motive here that he could see! Who wanted to kill him? Especially while standing next to a pair of police officers?

Or were they the target? Connor and Freya. Some kind of political hit, because of the clout of their families? To throw a candidate off balance, perhaps? Wasn't that a little too extreme? When even were the local elections? Too many questions, and too few answers!

Calm.

Dan closed his eyes, and let the numbness of the gap fill him.

Focus.

What were his priorities?

Safety. That could be achieved in moments. He would reappear, and slam the door shut. That would buy him some time. Guns wouldn't suffice. Would the attackers give up? Would they flee, or switch to something more lethal? They'd clearly rushed this assault; Connor and Freya had noticed them, and they'd panicked. What if they had something deadlier, that took time to engage? Some powerful upgrade or mutation that could plow right through the fortified walls of Dan's home?

What then?

He could fight back? But he had no weapons! No guns, despite living in Texas. The laws were a little more strict, here, and Dan hadn't felt the need. Why bother, when he could escape into t-space faster than he could ever produce a weapon? Why waste time taking safety courses that he'd already taken, to acquire something he'd never realistically use?

He was cursing his rationality, now. He wanted to be able to shoot at these people, even if that was entirely the wrong decision. Yet still, he had no gun. No weapon at all, except his +5 Eldritch-Bane Frying Pan of Death. He doubted that would have any real effect on his attackers.

So, what did he have?

Well, he had his veil, as he always did. There was a thought, there in the back of his mind. A way to weaponize things, that he'd been pondering ever since he'd discovered the ability to fall in t-space. He could grab something heavy—That anvil, at the mall!—and wrench it into the Gap. It wouldn't take any time at all. An instant, a blink, a single heartbeat. He could pull it close, and fall and fall and fall until it was moving at highway speeds.

He could drop it on the car. He could launch an anvil at them at the speed of sound. It wouldn't even be hard. His navigator could drop him over the car, then pull him out nigh-instantaneously. He just... wouldn't take the anvil back with him. What kind of damage would that do? Surely nothing would survive.

The consequences, though. Dan wasn't sure he could handle them. He'd certainly go to jail for that. It might not be straight murder, but it was certainly a violation of the Vigilante Acts, committed in front of two cops no less. An explosive crater, in plain view, in the middle of a neighborhood. No way around it, no way to hide it. It was a citizen's duty to disengage. Fighting back was a last resort. No castle doctrine in this Texas, not when upgrades came into play. If the gunmen advanced on Dan's home, it was his responsibility to hop a fence and haul ass in the opposite direction. Not to smear them across the concrete because they'd pissed him off.

So he'd call that plan B.

What, then, should he be doing? That one was easy: he should call the police. There were two officers literally under fire in his house. Two rookies at that. Help would come roaring onto the scene in minutes. That was the correct, responsible course of action. Especially if the attackers lingered.

So he had his plan. Drop back into reality next to the door, shove his friends out of the way if necessary, and slam it shut. Next, blink into the kitchen and have Abby take cover, then call the cops. What happened after that would depend entirely on the aggressors. If they stayed, moved in or started throwing around some heavy artillery, Dan would either flee or engage the anvil, depending on how much danger his friends were in.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that. He hoped the gunmen would flee once it became obvious that they'd have to resort to more than firearms. It seemed like a reasonable assumption. They were in a car, after all. That implied a certain amount of 'running away' baked into whatever the hell their plan was supposed to be.

Dan closed his eyes, and pictured the scene. The car swam into view in his mind's eye, the details that his brain had stored without conscious effort. The windows were too dark to make out how many were inside, but it was a full sized SUV. His gaze wandered down, past the engine, towards the grille. The car had plates. What kind of moron brought a car with plates to a drive-by? Was it stolen?

A6X JCD

Dan memorized it anyway.

What else? Time inched forward in his mind. The window rolled down, the steel barrel of a gun, held by pale hands. A jerk on his collar and his view tilted. He saw a dark sky, filled with clouds. Heard the roar of automatic fire, a broken staccato that indicated two separate sources. Beneath that, something brittle and sharp. Glass breaking? Not from his home, but the car. At least one person hadn't bothered to roll down their window before opening up. Then, the squealing of tires.

The SUV was two houses down, to the right. They were moving towards Dan's house, but the angle was poor. Their bullets would hit the bulletproof glass windows and the reinforced brick. The angle of his home meant they'd need to be almost dead center before they could put bullets through the open door, so he had a few moments.

The police cruiser would help. It might be tall enough to impede their aim and they'd have to steer around it. It was parked pretty much exactly where they needed to be. Dan would have time. His people would be safe.

He was going in circles, now. It was time for action.

Dan breathed in deep, and waited too find his calm. The cold of the Gap filled him. The numb clarity it provides draped around him like a cloak. His veil settled into his skin, ready for action, ready for orders.

He opened his eyes.

The world slammed back into existence, and Dan moved.

He reappeared in his doorway, standing just to the side of Connor. Time seemed to slow, and the gunpowder drums beat in tune to his pounding heart. Dan grasped the door, ignoring Connor's jerk of surprise as he left his grip. The younger man was already twisting upright, service weapon in hand. His partner fell into a roll, cast to safety the moment they cleared the doorway. A series of sharp cracks danced along the sidelight glass. Flattened lead rained down on Dan's porch, alongside bits of brick and ejected debris.

Dan slammed the door shut.

Connor finished his draw, and pointed his pistol at the closed door. He blinked, processing for a quick moment, before more gunfire peppered the entrance. The rookie twitched towards Freya, before noticing the spiderwebbing along the entrance.

"Bulletproof glass?" he asked incredulously.

Dan didn't answer; he was already moving. He appeared in the kitchen, dragging a startled Abby to the ground. Only her power's deep familiarity with him allowed the action to succeed, and he still almost earned himself a broken jaw from a reflexive elbow. She stared at him from where he'd tackled her behind the counter, surprise quickly morphing into something cold and certain. This was no longer Abby, his bubbly, cheerful girlfriend. This was the granddaughter of Anastasia Summers, trained and trusted to survive alone out in a very dangerous world..

"What's happening?" she asked.

Dan pressed his phone into her hands. "No fucking clue. Call the cops. Be right back."

He reappeared in the hallway beside his foyer. He could just about see into the entrance from where he stood. Connor and Freya had taken cover behind the staircase, and Freya was shouting something unintelligible into the radio on her shoulder. Connor had tipped over one of Dan's heavy wooden tables, and was sighting his pistol on the door from behind it. Intermittent gunfire still rained down on the front of Dan's house, but it sounded lighter, slower. Semi-auto.

"You okay?" Dan shouted over the noise.

Connor's eyes flicked to him, and he motioned Dan away.

"Take cover!" he bellowed back. "Backup is on the way! Just stay down until it's over!"

No sooner than the words had left his mouth, the gunfire stopped. Dan's ears caught the sound of melting tread, as the SUV burned a path away from his home. Tires squealed, as it rounded a corner, then silence.

Dan crouched down, glancing in confusion at Connor. The younger man glanced back, then slowly slid his makeshift cover forward along the ground, until he managed to peek through the window. He stared for several seconds, then turned to Dan.

"Lock your back door, then find somewhere to bunker up. I don't see them, but that doesn't mean they're gone."

Dan nodded, knowing there was no time for hesitation. He reappeared in the kitchen, next to Abby, still huddled behind the kitchen island. She held his phone up against her ear, and was rattling off their address to a dispatcher. He crouched beside her.

"It's quiet for now," he said. "Go hide in the basement. I'll lock the doors, then join you."

She nodded without argument, and moved past him, stopping only to briefly mash her lips against his. Dan watched her go, then blinked to his back door. He drew the shutters closed as quickly as he could, then turned the lock. His next stop brought him back to his foyer, where Connor and Freya waited, still gazing outside.

"I've got a hidden basement," Dan said. "Abby and I are gonna hide. You two coming?"

The two officers held a silent conversation, before Freya finally said, "Protocol is to wait for backup, not pursue. We should play it safe."

Connor grinded his teeth together, looking as furious and Dan felt. "Fine. Let's go."

The four of them hid in an ex-vigilante's safe room for about three minutes before backup arrived. Dan kept them apprised of what was going on outside through his doorbell camera, and when a SPEAR Team van drove right up onto his lawn, he knew it was time to exit. They crawled out of his hidden room, as the van disgorged a cadre of heavily armed, armored and angered cops. Connor barely managed to call out to them before they took down Dan's door with a battering ram.

People swarmed Dan's home, searching the premises. Dan and his friends were shuttled outside, under heavy guard. They were parked inside the surprisingly roomy SPEAR transport, and covered in blankets. One of the officers stayed with them, checking them for wounds.

Finally the all-clear was sounded. People dispersed across the lawn, to photograph evidence, and pick up discarded brass. One of the men peeled away from the group and approached them, removing his helmet and mask.

Cornelius Graham stared at the group of friends, his expression somewhere between worry and blood-chilling rage.

"What the hell happened here?"