Relatively Respectable Citizen

Jacob said to meet in this old-school style diner. I've only met him once or twice during the annual 'get-togethers' if you can call them that. Didn't make that much of an impression at the time, just that he was the contact Cartan gave me if I ever needed to address anything of utmost importance directly to him, but I didn't initiate this particular meeting in the first place. The ring of a bell, somebody just entered, as I look to my side I see a man with jagged clothes struggle to get through the door, his hair is messy and he's smoking a cigarette. That's Jacob alright. Finally, after limping his way to the table, he sits right in front of me.

"Uhhh... You must be Hester if I'm not mistaken."

"Yeah that's me."— I stick my hand up. — "Can I just ask you something before you relay Cartan's message?"

"... go ahead."

"What happened to you since the last time I saw you?"— I said as I noticed he was looking neither here nor there, he seemed to have ptosis and a bit of asymmetry to his eyes.

"Oh, that. Hmmm. Have you heard of hypnagogia?"

"The state in between awake or asleep?"

"Uh huh, that. Well, I approached Cartan with this idea of being in a constant feed of hypnagogia since it's supposed to... feel good y'know. Lucid dreaming and shit. Well, I've been on it for almost a year and a half. It dulls a lot of my senses, I think experience less pain on average. Problem is, I don't even know when I keep my eyes open, at times, I go into this dreamlike state while doing anything and then I find out I've been staring at the sun for minutes on end. The muscles of my eyelids seem to have given up as a result. Not like I led a healthy lifestyle before this anyway."

I don't know if I should believe him. Cartan can be a cruel man at times. If you get on his bad side even who knows what he'll do to you. Thankfully I've been a gracious servant of his for quite a bit, but as far as I know, Jacob has been to his side far more time than anyone who's still alive. He must be as old as 70, yet he looks 40-ish, even though his face can tell you how little he takes care of himself.

"You seem conflicted but I'll tell ya. A huge upside to this state is that it gives me a huge boost when it comes to my reflexes, it's an advantage of being half 'gone' most of the day. Also, I don't need to outright sleep."— Jacob said enthusiastically. I don't believe him for a second. —"With that out of the way, let's talk about why I invited you here but before that. Waiter! Can we get a waiter over here!"

A waitress brought two glasses of water and began to take our order, I asked for eggs and bacon since I hadn't eaten but for some reason, Jacob had asked to get five cups of coffee, he insisted that the coffee be brought individually as opposed to just getting a jug as the waitress suggested, she looked at him with a conflicted gaze but in the end went to the counter to place the order.

"Y'see. This world is full of people who want to stay in their shells, they don't know how to react when someone comes knocking."

"I don't know what you mean. Can we go back to the topic at hand?"

"Oh yeah. Cartan needs your intellect."

"Like always."

"But this time it isn't going to be any top-of-the-line surgery equipment or mere accounting."

"I hear you."— I took a sip of the water.

"He needs you to create a machine that collects brute."

"Wha—ACK!"— I coughed up the water in my mouth. —"That's beyond my realm of knowledge, he should know that! We're dealing with something that fully exists in another plane of existence, we can't even interact with it!"

"C'moooooooooon, as if it was so difficult for someone with your brain to figure it out."

"It's is! You'll have to tell him to give u—"

"Here's your coffee."— the waitress laid Jacob's order in the table.

"Thanks."— said Jacob in a sarcastic tone.

As the waitress left our table Jacob put on a big crooked smirk and pointed at a man sitting alone at the counter.

"Sit back and watch me closely."

Jacob then went up to him and poured scolding hot coffee over the man's head. He started to shake around the floor, rolling left and right trying to get rid of the burn. Jacob just looked in silence with a blank stare.

"HEY, YOU!"— an old man said. —"What do you think you are doing?!"

Jacob formed a gun gesture with his left hand and a small orange ball with a geometric pattern suddenly emerged, he appeared to have shot it directly at the customer but nothing happened for a few seconds until...

"I'm going to teach you a le..."— the old man's speech was cut short. His face separated into multiple pieces and so did the rest of his body. It floated up into the air and his speech became a bunch of nonsensical gargling noises. You could see his insides in the contours of the hundreds of pieces that used to belong to his full body. Several customers began to scream out of fear but nothing could've prepared me for what was next.

Jacob looked at his watch. —"Time!"— as soon as he said that a gush of blood inundated the area where the old man's body pieces had once been adrift. For a moment each body portion had its own 'invisible container' that forbade the contents from spilling out and Jacob made all of them simultaneously disappear. What followed was Jacob firing at targets left and right until 5 minutes had passed and not a single soul was left in the diner, except him and I.

I understood the memo.

"Ask me about it. About how I developed this power. I'll do you one better, I'll tell ya right now. Imagination! Have some imagination, will ya? All Cartan is asking from you is to give them a little something in exchange for being your patron for all these years. Can't you show a little gratitude and also..."— Gotta think, think! —"Don't you ever speak to me in that way again? What am I your errand boy? 'gO tElL CaRtAn I cAn'T EnTerTaIn hIs iDeAs'. Are you trying to get me killed? I could kill you right now, no hesitation, understood? Better to prune the organization's tree when I got the chance y'see, cut the dead branches! Is that what you want? Answer me!"— I looked at him, horrified about the situation I'd gotten into.

THINK! FASTER!

...

I've got it!

"J-Jacob..."— I HATE HIM (Pull yourself together) —"... there's an issue that's been obfuscating my work...— DIE! (Remember how long it took you to get here) —"they're dispatching our men."

"... huh?"— took the bait.

"I sent out a powerful henchman to take care of these wannabe vigilantes that have been running amok for years in this city, but I found out they've completely annihilated anyone I've sent to patrol!"— Good, keep using hyperbole. In truth, I got rid of that morphing weirdo since they wouldn't stop bothering me, it's not the first one Cartan has sent those I've suspected to be monitoring me so Cartan can learn the secret to my powers. That one did require me to take out a sample of its defeated state for Cartan's 'research purposes' if it ever lost to a fight.

"I see..."— Jacob said. These pathetic vigilantes will finally serve some purpose besides getting rid of those who get on my nerves. I have to cover for them, even though they take a sundry amount of precautions. Guess what? IT ISN'T ENOUGH. Cartan put on this strict policy to protect information from brute leaking to the public, even saving these guys' skins. Everywhere in the world, thousands of people are developing supernatural abilities yet Cartan's status is enough to sweep them under the rug.

"So?"— Jacob pondered.

"Erhm. I n-need back up here, I'm running out of people that can fight as proxies."— I say but in reality, I just want to make time. I have various cleaners who do away with any evidence left on crime scenes and have tracked a few of these wannabe vigilantes' addresses. I haven't done anything because they don't interfere with what I do, and, unlike SOME, I don't like to kill unnecessarily, it was a decision that ultimately bore fruit. Jacob stood there while staring at me directly (as best he could).

"Fine. I'll lend you some people."— after that, he left the place like nothing had happened. I sat there covered in the innards of the innocents, reflecting on what had just happened.

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Gyu wanted me to assist him in oune of his fruitless schemes yet again. I was hesitant at first but there's only one way to deal with this guy and that is to let him try and try, only thing I can do since I don't like fighting criminals in the slightest, he's a bit hapless but I don't find much malice in the way he acts. We are going to meet up— or rather sneak up on this 'member' of our 'organization' named Lou, a troubled man with the power to actually see the future like us. When it came time for his introduction Gyu had to make up an excuse for there being three separate people with essentially the same power, something about "human desires coinciding" and it "emerging in human's most vulnerable moments", etcetera.

"Sgt. what are we going to do when we see this guy? He should be somewhere in the mall."

"I don't know"— I replied. —"I don't know why you are so keen on meeting with this dude we haven't seen in months."

"He's so slippery! He always manages to escape when I try to help him use his powers better, he just doesn't listen."— Gyu has been on a bad mood ever since that girl discovered our ruse. His reactions didn't help the situation, it gave away the fact he lied in the first place, surprisingly she took it well if a little unserious, she was laughing at Gyu's face the entire time. At the end she just waved her hand and left saying she'd see us soon, Gyu started going off on saying that she's so overpowered as her waving her hand didn't cause any destruction around her meaning she can willfully choose when to use her powers.

"Ah-a! Found him!"— Gyu shouted. He ran towards Lou who was standing next to a lotto booth. —"YOU CAN'T ESCAPE MY CLUTCHES NOW!"

"Help!"— cried Lou.

After the commotion had passed Lou explained his new sure-fire exploit.

"So... that's the idea... I look at the lottery tickets displayed and go through each version of the future where I buy one to pick out the winning tickets"— it's a mistake to call Lou's powers actual future vision, he has to visualize each scenario and go through the process of living it in his mind (which can take hours), so he's useless in foretelling catastrophic events, specially since he barely steps out of his apartment in the first place.

"Hmm. I see your approach still, isn't it better if you got an actual job."— like you are one to speak Gyu!

"Ku-hu-hu! You men have forgotten the bliss, the bliss of free money"— what a weird laugh. —"You'll see, with this trick I'll become a millionaire!"

"I'd like to see you try. Haven't you been scrolling trough a bunch of losing tickets for the past few hours?"

"Strong men don't lose hope!"

3 hours had passed. Lou had only managed to win around 8 dollars, which would be fine if he didn't give up halfway in using his 'future vision' and bought a bunch of $2 scratch-off tickets since it was taking so long. Gyu looked at the different tickets up close, he had started to take notes around the 30-minute mark for some reason. We all sat together in a bench, Lou was staring down into the floor with deep regret as he had blown 50 dollars on 25 lotto tickets, meanwhile I drank a smoothie I bought at a nearby tropical-themed café.

"Hmm. Huh?"

"Did you notice something?"— I ask Gyu.

"It's weird. It's like... you see how these scratch-off cards have numbers in each panel before you scratch it to reveal the dollar prize"

"Yeah, it's for those superstitious people who believe in lucky numbers, what of them?"

"Well... for some reason, a thing that all winning tickets share in common is that some numbers don't repeat in neither the columns and rows."

"Meaning?"

"This single numbers are an indication of winning tickets!"

"Ah. You can't be serious."— Another stupid scheme.

"Just watch me!"— Gyu had gone to the booth, carefully selected his scratch-offs and...

"I just won 20 bucks."

"WOOOOOH!"— Lou couldn't believe his eyes.

I was taken aback. After that Lou went and tried and got his 50 dollars back as well as a little extra. Gyu said to meet up in another day to try again. Could these guys really have cracked the code?

We met up the following day as was planned. Lou looked more confident and was rocking some shorts and a hawaiian shirt as if he was travelling to Las Vegas. Again, Gyu's theory proved to be right. And they stepped out of the day with 200 dollars in total. I was shocked.

They'd repeat the process two more times during the week, each time with a bigger resulting haul. They were estatic, I thought we were going to get kicked out of the mall for sure, or be reported to the authorties for winning so much. Until the day came.

"Woo-hoo. Numbers 21 and 67 aren't repeated on the board! We got a winner in our hands!"— Gyu scratched the ticket maniacally, I thought I knew what was coming and prepared my eardrums for the incoming loud celebratory yelling but things took an unexpected turn for the gambling duo. —"What? No winner?"

"It must be a mistake. Gyu try another ticket."— said Lou.

"O-ok, I will!"

Yet again, another loser.

"What is going on?"— Gyu asked into the void, no direct target to answer his inquiry.

"Have we lost our lucky streak?"

"No dumbass! There's no luck in the first place! It's a method used by the Mendax Group™ to know the number of winning tickets. If it was actually random they'd be losing much more money!"— Mendax Group is the one of the largest lottery operators in the region and the ones with the name plastered in all of Gyu's and Lou's precious "Lucky DigitZ" tickets.

"Let's just go Gyu."— I said to him. There's no point in whining about money you got by chance by spending all of the of your previous jackpots and your own rent money on loser tickets.

"NO SARGE!"— he screamed. —"JUST ONE MORE, JUST ONE MORE!!! 99.99% OF GAMBLERS QUIT BEFORE THEY HIT IT BIG!!!"— by this point I was holding him back from making more stupid decisions, Lou just curled up in a corner while bawling his eyes out. Another fruitless scheme.

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Mendax Group Headquarters, 4:00 pm

"Hey, Egan. I've found some irregularities in your reports. Care to explain? Have you've been messing with the lotto's outcome?"

"I can answer you, but first you'll have to answer my question. How much are you willing to risk in a game?"