Chapter 197: 197
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A stern man in a suit gently but firmly nudged her out of the way and said, "Thank you nurse but we'll take it from here."
Looking p*ssed but trying to keep a professional display, she said, "Mr. Rainier, if you start to feel weak, light headed or your head starts to hurt, buzz for me immediately."
Shooting the man who flashed his detective at Al while she was still talking a dirty look, she said, "Sir, if you interrupt me in the middle of my patient time, ESPECIALLY while I'm checking on one who might have a life threatening condition, you'll not be very happy about what's waiting for you back at your office."
Looking up and seeing the detective give a knowing smirk to the police officer beside him, Al said, "She wouldn't be the first nurse to cost a detective his career. Commissioners take complaints from skilled medical staff very seriously."
Blinking in surprise, the man said, "How would you know?"
"Before I shot realistically lower, I had aspirations to be a medical lawyer. Growing student loans and falling grades had me looking to end that dream before it's cost buried me," Al said frankly.
"Struggling with debt, are you? Desperate enough to try to knock over an ATM, maybe?" the detective said.
Irritated, Al said, "If you're asking questions like that then I don't need to be talking to you. I need to be talking with a public defender... I highly doubt I did anything to warrant being accused of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time and not being particularly healthy."
"What's wrong with you?" the detective asked, unfazed.
Al replied, "About a half a year ago or so, I almost died from a brain aneurysm. It's been a struggle but I'm pulling my life together just fine without resorting to crime. Kind of like that lady from Game of Crowns, the one with the dragons."
During the questioning, he found out that one of the bystanders was smart enough to sneak into the crowd and under the ATM camera to take a handful of money before police arrived to secure it. The main concern from the police was trying to figure out if Al was some kind of distraction but didn't really have anything conclusive enough to level a finger at him. Since his pulse was a little erratic and he had been somewhat dehydrated, the medical staff were fairly capable of telling that the faint wasn't faked.
To insure that he was going to be safe to return to work, the hospital gave him 48 hour medical leave before he needed to return. He was also banned from driving his car for the same amount of time. Embarrassed, he called up Mathias. With the help of his friend and his friend's uncle, he managed to get himself and his car back home. Even more embarrassed, he'd lost his house keys.
Fortunately, his car had a spare under the floor mat and it was the middle of the day so the apartment manager could let him in. After paying the social niceties of receiving someone's help and offering a little gas money that was refused, he was left alone to stew on a terrible day. Looking forward to a possible 100 dollar lock replacement bill, Al went to bed early in a bad mood.
In the middle of the night, he woke up to a masked face holding a gloved hand over his mouth and gun at his face. "I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth. If you don't want to die, keep it shut. I'm going to give you to the count of three to open this diary lock. If you fail, I'm going to blow your brains out."
The deep and gravelly but youthful voice's words kept echoing into Al's ears as a locked girl's dollar store diary was thrown on his chest. As the man started counting, Al tried to open it. It was obviously locked and its plastic bound cover was a lot tougher than his stroke weakened, lack of meaningful exercise arms could force open. At the same time that he heard the clicking of a hammer being drawn back once the man counted to zero, Orison squeezed his eyes shut as desperation pushed against the boundary of what he believed possible.
He was ashamed to admit it but he had let a little out when the intruder shouted 'bang!'. The man looked down at the diary and became silent. Once it was painfully clear his head was still in one piece, Al looked down too. The diary was laying on the floor of his bedroom open.
What made it so odd was that a bit of a broken aluminum key tip was laying on the floor beside it, forced out when the locking bar inside was smashed back into the hollow the key piece had been jammed in. The man backed away from Al some and pointed the gun back at him. The man was equal parts excited and spooked. He couldn't blame the man, he was feeling about the same way.
In the silent deadlock where he was afraid to move, Al's fear finally melted away to another need in the after shock of adrenaline. "I'm not completely recovered from a near death thing that happened half a year ago. I need something to eat, something to drink and before that, a p*ss break. You literally scared a little out of me.
"I'm sure you've checked where the phones are between here and the bathroom. The cell phone's already not where I put it. Please tell me, whatever it is that you made me do isn't going to keep you frozen there all night trying to figure out if there's a way to use me or if I might be able to do something else."
The deep voiced youth said, "Can you?"
"Can I what? I'm pretty sure I'm more than capable of peeing. If I don't get on top of that soon, I'm going to ruin a record I've been holding since I turned five... Can I please go to the bathroom, Mr. House Invader?" Al said, trying to sound a great deal more chill than he was feeling, struggling not to pass out again.
The young man backed up some more as Al got up and walked to the bathroom.
While he was in there, he heard the gun wielding youth say, "Put some shorts on while your at it. No one wants to see your flabby old white a**."
Trying for some levity, Al said, "I'm definitely two shades from Caspar but do we have to start insulting me over my age and looks? I don't need body image issues on top of everything else."
Despite himself, the home invader chuckled a couple of times and said, "You're cracked, Caspar."
Al finished his business, grabbed some clothes out of the bathroom hamper and said, "Almost dying a couple of times will do that to you."
For a good portion of the rest of the night, he lowered the guy's vigilance down to a level where the man finally took off his mask and drank a beer out of the fridge with him while spilling his sob story. It wasn't Al's idea of a good surprise visit but it beat continually having a gun pointed at his face with the guy not willing to leave. Sadly, it was the most excitement he'd had in some time and he felt that maybe he was cracked a little because he didn't feel any hurry to make the guy leave.
Devon finished, "So, yeah. I didn't want to boost that car but my brother was already in jail and his girlfriend was going to run off back to her mom's if someone didn't pay the bills. He might have slipped a little but he was pretty much clean and looking for work because of his kid, you know?"
Al sighed, "I'm not a decent moral authority around here but all you really managed to do was get yourself into the same kind of 'no way out' scenario that your brother was in."
Frowning but not interested in debate, Devon said, "So, how long you been able to... you know, open sh*t?"
He shrugged and said, "Who knows. I didn't until tonight. If you would have asked me if I was the one to open that ATM, I would have laughed in your face. Well, maybe not yours. I think I'm allergic to bullets."
Excitedly, the young black man said suggestively, "There's like, twenty something ATMs all over town."
Al nodded and said, "If I'm anywhere near another one that opens up like that first one did, I'm going to jail for a few days, even if they can't prove anything. A third? I don't know if there's 'Men in Black' but that's not how I want to find out."
Things stayed pleasant for awhile. Devon thought of how Al's near death experience may have awakened some kind of power like a superhero or something. But after that topic grew tired, the young man started talking about what he would do with it and how it wasn't right that some 'privileged' white man got it, among other things. He seemed like he was riling himself up to do something dangerous and Al was likely to be the target of it.
There was a part of him that wanted to give such a devil's gift to the young man and watch as Devon burned his own life to the ground with it. He chalked that up to the nerves from waking up with a gun aimed at him but it didn't matter why he thought it. While the young man grew increasingly irate, a silver key appeared in the air and landed in Devon's lap.
On an instinctual level, Al knew what had happened. He instantly regretted the thought he had. The young man was obviously desperate and it didn't seem like he was inherently bad or evil minded. He was about to try to will the key elsewhere when Devon grabbed it.
Excited once again, Devon said, "Is this what I think it is?"
Trying to get ahead of the damage that was about to happen, Al said, "I do believe that's the devil's gift you were asking for, yes. Make no mistake about what it is and don't think that such a thing comes without a cost... Don't look at me like that either. I don't really know anything about IT, per say, but I can see a rotten thing and not have to take a bite to verify."
Sneering, the young man said, "So, what? I'm supposed to be like you, too chicken sh*t to use it?"
Al said, "I don't remember saying that I wouldn't. I just want to know everything about it first. There might be safer or even better ways to use it but snatching the low hanging fruit with cameras pointed at it from all direction seems dumb. Not to mention, you do know that every single bill in those things are traceable. Within days, they'll be able to tell where all they were spent and someone WILL investigate those places.
"Figuring it all out isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And the more you take, the more you use, the faster they'll find you. There's a lot of locks in the world that should be opened. Most of them don't have money behind them but even better things, more important ones. I'm not going to do a single thing to stop you from taking it but, Devon...be smart. Exercise as much intelligence and wisdom as you can before using it.
The young man got up to leave after verifying on Al's front door that it was, in fact what he hoped it would be.
"One more thing," Al said before the young man left.
Turning a somewhat wicked smile at him, the young man said, "What do you want, Caspar?"
Looking slightly put out, Al said, "Can I have my keys back? You obviously don't need them anymore, even if you did want to give me a rude awakening again."
Devon laughed and tossed Al's keys back. "You really are cracked. Are you going to take the key back as soon as I leave?"
Al shook his head and said, "I'm kind of scared what I'd be tempted to do with it, if I had it. I don't really think it's a good thing to have unless you don't need it... If that makes sense. It's weird but... if it came from where I think it did, the last man who had it was hanged."
Laughing but with a a ton of barely repressed rage on his face, Devon said, "Oh, was he black?"
Al shook his head again and said, "A teenage white kid. He was an orphan desperate for food, not even money... My house might be under surveillance since a detective talked to me this afternoon. If you have any money from that ATM on you, I'd suggest you ditch it in a way you can find it later before leaving the apartment complex. Same with the gun."
Seeing that Devon was about to leave money in his home, Al said, "Are you crazy!? If they really are out there, my apartment's their second stop!"
Smiling wickedly again, the young man dropped a wad of twenties on Al's floor and walked out. Once Devon was gone, he flushed them down the toilet. A few minutes later he felt stupid but two after that, there was knocking and shouting at his door before the rest of his night was ruined.
The police officer that dropped Al back off at his house bright and early in the morning said, "I can't believe you made the station give you a ride home. I also can't believe you took it. You don't live in the best neighborhood and now everyone's going to be looking at you funny for one reason or another."
Al sighed. "I'm tired and you guys were in such a hurry to get me out and turn my apartment upside down, you didn't even let me grab my wallet. You know, if they'd have only taken the money out, I still could have used the card for a cab home or something."
The police officer didn't bother hearing him out and took off before he was even finished speaking.
"Rude," Al muttered.
For a time after that, things went back to 'normal'. Al went back to his record keeping job after the medical leave was over and funds were tighter than ever but he was making it. With the change in his diet and some light exercise, he was feeling better too. His thoughts were still dull, he still felt sad or a touch extra emotional all the time but he was coping.
A scary thought that ran in the back of his mind as he occasionally woke up screaming in the middle of the night from one fuzzy young copy of himself dying in a dream.
He thought, "If I get what they leave behind when they die, will I stop being me one day?"
It was a sick thing to admit but when one dream self died from burning at the steak as a witch, he was anxiously happy to try the ability that the kid used to clean the inn he'd been working at. He wasn't wholly convinced it had but he felt tired and a little nauseous afterward. The world that the 'witch' had died in wasn't so much fantasy but there were monsters and stuff.
He thought it was possible that whatever was in the air in his world wasn't enough to carry the ability and he didn't have enough of whatever could be inside to do it either. At least, not enough to not suffer consequences if he didn't stop trying for the time being. He tried not to feel excited about the possibility of another copy dying and getting something else but it was hard to ignore the rewards for it happening.
He felt a little younger, healthier. As more fuzzy echoes of himself passed away, even the cottony feeling in his mind was receding, being replaced by a sharpness that he had taken for granted before. As much as he hated dreaming through the shadowy deaths, he couldn't deny that it was obviously beneficial to him.
Nearly a month after Devon's first visit, Al was awakened in the middle of the night yet again. It wasn't to a gun being pointed at his head but a duffel a quarter way filled with old bills. Some of them were dirty and some had been used to do bad things with considering the funny smells and powdery residue on them but they were undeniably spendable.
Al blearily looked up at the sharply dressed and much better off looking Devon. That was, aside from nearly bruise-like circles around the edges of the eyes and the slightly older appearance that had nothing to do with his apparel. It wasn't a good sign.
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A stern man in a suit gently but firmly nudged her out of the way and said, "Thank you nurse but we'll take it from here."
Looking p*ssed but trying to keep a professional display, she said, "Mr. Rainier, if you start to feel weak, light headed or your head starts to hurt, buzz for me immediately."
Shooting the man who flashed his detective at Al while she was still talking a dirty look, she said, "Sir, if you interrupt me in the middle of my patient time, ESPECIALLY while I'm checking on one who might have a life threatening condition, you'll not be very happy about what's waiting for you back at your office."
Looking up and seeing the detective give a knowing smirk to the police officer beside him, Al said, "She wouldn't be the first nurse to cost a detective his career. Commissioners take complaints from skilled medical staff very seriously."
Blinking in surprise, the man said, "How would you know?"
"Before I shot realistically lower, I had aspirations to be a medical lawyer. Growing student loans and falling grades had me looking to end that dream before it's cost buried me," Al said frankly.
"Struggling with debt, are you? Desperate enough to try to knock over an ATM, maybe?" the detective said.
Irritated, Al said, "If you're asking questions like that then I don't need to be talking to you. I need to be talking with a public defender... I highly doubt I did anything to warrant being accused of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time and not being particularly healthy."
"What's wrong with you?" the detective asked, unfazed.
Al replied, "About a half a year ago or so, I almost died from a brain aneurysm. It's been a struggle but I'm pulling my life together just fine without resorting to crime. Kind of like that lady from Game of Crowns, the one with the dragons."
During the questioning, he found out that one of the bystanders was smart enough to sneak into the crowd and under the ATM camera to take a handful of money before police arrived to secure it. The main concern from the police was trying to figure out if Al was some kind of distraction but didn't really have anything conclusive enough to level a finger at him. Since his pulse was a little erratic and he had been somewhat dehydrated, the medical staff were fairly capable of telling that the faint wasn't faked.
To insure that he was going to be safe to return to work, the hospital gave him 48 hour medical leave before he needed to return. He was also banned from driving his car for the same amount of time. Embarrassed, he called up Mathias. With the help of his friend and his friend's uncle, he managed to get himself and his car back home. Even more embarrassed, he'd lost his house keys.
Fortunately, his car had a spare under the floor mat and it was the middle of the day so the apartment manager could let him in. After paying the social niceties of receiving someone's help and offering a little gas money that was refused, he was left alone to stew on a terrible day. Looking forward to a possible 100 dollar lock replacement bill, Al went to bed early in a bad mood.
In the middle of the night, he woke up to a masked face holding a gloved hand over his mouth and gun at his face. "I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth. If you don't want to die, keep it shut. I'm going to give you to the count of three to open this diary lock. If you fail, I'm going to blow your brains out."
The deep and gravelly but youthful voice's words kept echoing into Al's ears as a locked girl's dollar store diary was thrown on his chest. As the man started counting, Al tried to open it. It was obviously locked and its plastic bound cover was a lot tougher than his stroke weakened, lack of meaningful exercise arms could force open. At the same time that he heard the clicking of a hammer being drawn back once the man counted to zero, Orison squeezed his eyes shut as desperation pushed against the boundary of what he believed possible.
He was ashamed to admit it but he had let a little out when the intruder shouted 'bang!'. The man looked down at the diary and became silent. Once it was painfully clear his head was still in one piece, Al looked down too. The diary was laying on the floor of his bedroom open.
What made it so odd was that a bit of a broken aluminum key tip was laying on the floor beside it, forced out when the locking bar inside was smashed back into the hollow the key piece had been jammed in. The man backed away from Al some and pointed the gun back at him. The man was equal parts excited and spooked. He couldn't blame the man, he was feeling about the same way.
In the silent deadlock where he was afraid to move, Al's fear finally melted away to another need in the after shock of adrenaline. "I'm not completely recovered from a near death thing that happened half a year ago. I need something to eat, something to drink and before that, a p*ss break. You literally scared a little out of me.
"I'm sure you've checked where the phones are between here and the bathroom. The cell phone's already not where I put it. Please tell me, whatever it is that you made me do isn't going to keep you frozen there all night trying to figure out if there's a way to use me or if I might be able to do something else."
The deep voiced youth said, "Can you?"
"Can I what? I'm pretty sure I'm more than capable of peeing. If I don't get on top of that soon, I'm going to ruin a record I've been holding since I turned five... Can I please go to the bathroom, Mr. House Invader?" Al said, trying to sound a great deal more chill than he was feeling, struggling not to pass out again.
The young man backed up some more as Al got up and walked to the bathroom.
While he was in there, he heard the gun wielding youth say, "Put some shorts on while your at it. No one wants to see your flabby old white a**."
Trying for some levity, Al said, "I'm definitely two shades from Caspar but do we have to start insulting me over my age and looks? I don't need body image issues on top of everything else."
Despite himself, the home invader chuckled a couple of times and said, "You're cracked, Caspar."
Al finished his business, grabbed some clothes out of the bathroom hamper and said, "Almost dying a couple of times will do that to you."
For a good portion of the rest of the night, he lowered the guy's vigilance down to a level where the man finally took off his mask and drank a beer out of the fridge with him while spilling his sob story. It wasn't Al's idea of a good surprise visit but it beat continually having a gun pointed at his face with the guy not willing to leave. Sadly, it was the most excitement he'd had in some time and he felt that maybe he was cracked a little because he didn't feel any hurry to make the guy leave.
Devon finished, "So, yeah. I didn't want to boost that car but my brother was already in jail and his girlfriend was going to run off back to her mom's if someone didn't pay the bills. He might have slipped a little but he was pretty much clean and looking for work because of his kid, you know?"
Al sighed, "I'm not a decent moral authority around here but all you really managed to do was get yourself into the same kind of 'no way out' scenario that your brother was in."
Frowning but not interested in debate, Devon said, "So, how long you been able to... you know, open sh*t?"
He shrugged and said, "Who knows. I didn't until tonight. If you would have asked me if I was the one to open that ATM, I would have laughed in your face. Well, maybe not yours. I think I'm allergic to bullets."
Excitedly, the young black man said suggestively, "There's like, twenty something ATMs all over town."
Al nodded and said, "If I'm anywhere near another one that opens up like that first one did, I'm going to jail for a few days, even if they can't prove anything. A third? I don't know if there's 'Men in Black' but that's not how I want to find out."
Things stayed pleasant for awhile. Devon thought of how Al's near death experience may have awakened some kind of power like a superhero or something. But after that topic grew tired, the young man started talking about what he would do with it and how it wasn't right that some 'privileged' white man got it, among other things. He seemed like he was riling himself up to do something dangerous and Al was likely to be the target of it.
There was a part of him that wanted to give such a devil's gift to the young man and watch as Devon burned his own life to the ground with it. He chalked that up to the nerves from waking up with a gun aimed at him but it didn't matter why he thought it. While the young man grew increasingly irate, a silver key appeared in the air and landed in Devon's lap.
On an instinctual level, Al knew what had happened. He instantly regretted the thought he had. The young man was obviously desperate and it didn't seem like he was inherently bad or evil minded. He was about to try to will the key elsewhere when Devon grabbed it.
Excited once again, Devon said, "Is this what I think it is?"
Trying to get ahead of the damage that was about to happen, Al said, "I do believe that's the devil's gift you were asking for, yes. Make no mistake about what it is and don't think that such a thing comes without a cost... Don't look at me like that either. I don't really know anything about IT, per say, but I can see a rotten thing and not have to take a bite to verify."
Sneering, the young man said, "So, what? I'm supposed to be like you, too chicken sh*t to use it?"
Al said, "I don't remember saying that I wouldn't. I just want to know everything about it first. There might be safer or even better ways to use it but snatching the low hanging fruit with cameras pointed at it from all direction seems dumb. Not to mention, you do know that every single bill in those things are traceable. Within days, they'll be able to tell where all they were spent and someone WILL investigate those places.
"Figuring it all out isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And the more you take, the more you use, the faster they'll find you. There's a lot of locks in the world that should be opened. Most of them don't have money behind them but even better things, more important ones. I'm not going to do a single thing to stop you from taking it but, Devon...be smart. Exercise as much intelligence and wisdom as you can before using it.
The young man got up to leave after verifying on Al's front door that it was, in fact what he hoped it would be.
"One more thing," Al said before the young man left.
Turning a somewhat wicked smile at him, the young man said, "What do you want, Caspar?"
Looking slightly put out, Al said, "Can I have my keys back? You obviously don't need them anymore, even if you did want to give me a rude awakening again."
Devon laughed and tossed Al's keys back. "You really are cracked. Are you going to take the key back as soon as I leave?"
Al shook his head and said, "I'm kind of scared what I'd be tempted to do with it, if I had it. I don't really think it's a good thing to have unless you don't need it... If that makes sense. It's weird but... if it came from where I think it did, the last man who had it was hanged."
Laughing but with a a ton of barely repressed rage on his face, Devon said, "Oh, was he black?"
Al shook his head again and said, "A teenage white kid. He was an orphan desperate for food, not even money... My house might be under surveillance since a detective talked to me this afternoon. If you have any money from that ATM on you, I'd suggest you ditch it in a way you can find it later before leaving the apartment complex. Same with the gun."
Seeing that Devon was about to leave money in his home, Al said, "Are you crazy!? If they really are out there, my apartment's their second stop!"
Smiling wickedly again, the young man dropped a wad of twenties on Al's floor and walked out. Once Devon was gone, he flushed them down the toilet. A few minutes later he felt stupid but two after that, there was knocking and shouting at his door before the rest of his night was ruined.
The police officer that dropped Al back off at his house bright and early in the morning said, "I can't believe you made the station give you a ride home. I also can't believe you took it. You don't live in the best neighborhood and now everyone's going to be looking at you funny for one reason or another."
Al sighed. "I'm tired and you guys were in such a hurry to get me out and turn my apartment upside down, you didn't even let me grab my wallet. You know, if they'd have only taken the money out, I still could have used the card for a cab home or something."
The police officer didn't bother hearing him out and took off before he was even finished speaking.
"Rude," Al muttered.
For a time after that, things went back to 'normal'. Al went back to his record keeping job after the medical leave was over and funds were tighter than ever but he was making it. With the change in his diet and some light exercise, he was feeling better too. His thoughts were still dull, he still felt sad or a touch extra emotional all the time but he was coping.
A scary thought that ran in the back of his mind as he occasionally woke up screaming in the middle of the night from one fuzzy young copy of himself dying in a dream.
He thought, "If I get what they leave behind when they die, will I stop being me one day?"
It was a sick thing to admit but when one dream self died from burning at the steak as a witch, he was anxiously happy to try the ability that the kid used to clean the inn he'd been working at. He wasn't wholly convinced it had but he felt tired and a little nauseous afterward. The world that the 'witch' had died in wasn't so much fantasy but there were monsters and stuff.
He thought it was possible that whatever was in the air in his world wasn't enough to carry the ability and he didn't have enough of whatever could be inside to do it either. At least, not enough to not suffer consequences if he didn't stop trying for the time being. He tried not to feel excited about the possibility of another copy dying and getting something else but it was hard to ignore the rewards for it happening.
He felt a little younger, healthier. As more fuzzy echoes of himself passed away, even the cottony feeling in his mind was receding, being replaced by a sharpness that he had taken for granted before. As much as he hated dreaming through the shadowy deaths, he couldn't deny that it was obviously beneficial to him.
Nearly a month after Devon's first visit, Al was awakened in the middle of the night yet again. It wasn't to a gun being pointed at his head but a duffel a quarter way filled with old bills. Some of them were dirty and some had been used to do bad things with considering the funny smells and powdery residue on them but they were undeniably spendable.
Al blearily looked up at the sharply dressed and much better off looking Devon. That was, aside from nearly bruise-like circles around the edges of the eyes and the slightly older appearance that had nothing to do with his apparel. It wasn't a good sign.
A stern man in a suit gently but firmly nudged her out of the way and said, "Thank you nurse but we'll take it from here." Looking p*ssed but trying to keep a professional display, she said, "Mr. Rainier, if you start to feel weak, light headed or your head starts to hurt, buzz for me immediately." Shooting the man who flashed his detective at Al while she was still talking a dirty look, she said, "Sir, if you interrupt me in the middle of my patient time, ESPECIALLY while I'm checking on one who might have a life threatening condition, you'll not be very happy about what's waiting for you back at your office." Looking up and seeing the detective give a knowing smirk to the police officer beside him, Al said, "She wouldn't be the first nurse to cost a detective his career. Commissioners take complaints from skilled medical staff very seriously." Blinking in surprise, the man said, "How would you know?" "Before I shot realistically lower, I had aspirations to be a medical lawyer. Growing student loans and falling grades had me looking to end that dream before it's cost buried me," Al said frankly. "Struggling with debt, are you? Desperate enough to try to knock over an ATM, maybe?" the detective said. Irritated, Al said, "If you're asking questions like that then I don't need to be talking to you. I need to be talking with a public defender... I highly doubt I did anything to warrant being accused of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time and not being particularly healthy." "What's wrong with you?" the detective asked, unfazed. Al replied, "About a half a year ago or so, I almost died from a brain aneurysm. It's been a struggle but I'm pulling my life together just fine without resorting to crime. Kind of like that lady from Game of Crowns, the one with the dragons." During the questioning, he found out that one of the bystanders was smart enough to sneak into the crowd and under the ATM camera to take a handful of money before police arrived to secure it. The main concern from the police was trying to figure out if Al was some kind of distraction but didn't really have anything conclusive enough to level a finger at him. Since his pulse was a little erratic and he had been somewhat dehydrated, the medical staff were fairly capable of telling that the faint wasn't faked. To insure that he was going to be safe to return to work, the hospital gave him 48 hour medical leave before he needed to return. He was also banned from driving his car for the same amount of time. Embarrassed, he called up Mathias. With the help of his friend and his friend's uncle, he managed to get himself and his car back home. Even more embarrassed, he'd lost his house keys. Fortunately, his car had a spare under the floor mat and it was the middle of the day so the apartment manager could let him in. After paying the social niceties of receiving someone's help and offering a little gas money that was refused, he was left alone to stew on a terrible day. Looking forward to a possible 100 dollar lock replacement bill, Al went to bed early in a bad mood. In the middle of the night, he woke up to a masked face holding a gloved hand over his mouth and gun at his face. "I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth. If you don't want to die, keep it shut. I'm going to give you to the count of three to open this diary lock. If you fail, I'm going to blow your brains out." The deep and gravelly but youthful voice's words kept echoing into Al's ears as a locked girl's dollar store diary was thrown on his chest. As the man started counting, Al tried to open it. It was obviously locked and its plastic bound cover was a lot tougher than his stroke weakened, lack of meaningful exercise arms could force open. At the same time that he heard the clicking of a hammer being drawn back once the man counted to zero, Orison squeezed his eyes shut as desperation pushed against the boundary of what he believed possible. He was ashamed to admit it but he had let a little out when the intruder shouted 'bang!'. The man looked down at the diary and became silent. Once it was painfully clear his head was still in one piece, Al looked down too. The diary was laying on the floor of his bedroom open. What made it so odd was that a bit of a broken aluminum key tip was laying on the floor beside it, forced out when the locking bar inside was smashed back into the hollow the key piece had been jammed in. The man backed away from Al some and pointed the gun back at him. The man was equal parts excited and spooked. He couldn't blame the man, he was feeling about the same way. In the silent deadlock where he was afraid to move, Al's fear finally melted away to another need in the after shock of adrenaline. "I'm not completely recovered from a near death thing that happened half a year ago. I need something to eat, something to drink and before that, a p*ss break. You literally scared a little out of me. "I'm sure you've checked where the phones are between here and the bathroom. The cell phone's already not where I put it. Please tell me, whatever it is that you made me do isn't going to keep you frozen there all night trying to figure out if there's a way to use me or if I might be able to do something else." The deep voiced youth said, "Can you?" "Can I what? I'm pretty sure I'm more than capable of peeing. If I don't get on top of that soon, I'm going to ruin a record I've been holding since I turned five... Can I please go to the bathroom, Mr. House Invader?" Al said, trying to sound a great deal more chill than he was feeling, struggling not to pass out again. The young man backed up some more as Al got up and walked to the bathroom. While he was in there, he heard the gun wielding youth say, "Put some shorts on while your at it. No one wants to see your flabby old white a**." Trying for some levity, Al said, "I'm definitely two shades from Caspar but do we have to start insulting me over my age and looks? I don't need body image issues on top of everything else." Despite himself, the home invader chuckled a couple of times and said, "You're cracked, Caspar." Al finished his business, grabbed some clothes out of the bathroom hamper and said, "Almost dying a couple of times will do that to you." For a good portion of the rest of the night, he lowered the guy's vigilance down to a level where the man finally took off his mask and drank a beer out of the fridge with him while spilling his sob story. It wasn't Al's idea of a good surprise visit but it beat continually having a gun pointed at his face with the guy not willing to leave. Sadly, it was the most excitement he'd had in some time and he felt that maybe he was cracked a little because he didn't feel any hurry to make the guy leave. Devon finished, "So, yeah. I didn't want to boost that car but my brother was already in jail and his girlfriend was going to run off back to her mom's if someone didn't pay the bills. He might have slipped a little but he was pretty much clean and looking for work because of his kid, you know?" Al sighed, "I'm not a decent moral authority around here but all you really managed to do was get yourself into the same kind of 'no way out' scenario that your brother was in." Frowning but not interested in debate, Devon said, "So, how long you been able to... you know, open sh*t?" He shrugged and said, "Who knows. I didn't until tonight. If you would have asked me if I was the one to open that ATM, I would have laughed in your face. Well, maybe not yours. I think I'm allergic to bullets." Excitedly, the young black man said suggestively, "There's like, twenty something ATMs all over town." Al nodded and said, "If I'm anywhere near another one that opens up like that first one did, I'm going to jail for a few days, even if they can't prove anything. A third? I don't know if there's 'Men in Black' but that's not how I want to find out." Things stayed pleasant for awhile. Devon thought of how Al's near death experience may have awakened some kind of power like a superhero or something. But after that topic grew tired, the young man started talking about what he would do with it and how it wasn't right that some 'privileged' white man got it, among other things. He seemed like he was riling himself up to do something dangerous and Al was likely to be the target of it. There was a part of him that wanted to give such a devil's gift to the young man and watch as Devon burned his own life to the ground with it. He chalked that up to the nerves from waking up with a gun aimed at him but it didn't matter why he thought it. While the young man grew increasingly irate, a silver key appeared in the air and landed in Devon's lap. On an instinctual level, Al knew what had happened. He instantly regretted the thought he had. The young man was obviously desperate and it didn't seem like he was inherently bad or evil minded. He was about to try to will the key elsewhere when Devon grabbed it. Excited once again, Devon said, "Is this what I think it is?" Trying to get ahead of the damage that was about to happen, Al said, "I do believe that's the devil's gift you were asking for, yes. Make no mistake about what it is and don't think that such a thing comes without a cost... Don't look at me like that either. I don't really know anything about IT, per say, but I can see a rotten thing and not have to take a bite to verify." Sneering, the young man said, "So, what? I'm supposed to be like you, too chicken sh*t to use it?" Al said, "I don't remember saying that I wouldn't. I just want to know everything about it first. There might be safer or even better ways to use it but snatching the low hanging fruit with cameras pointed at it from all direction seems dumb. Not to mention, you do know that every single bill in those things are traceable. Within days, they'll be able to tell where all they were spent and someone WILL investigate those places. "Figuring it all out isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And the more you take, the more you use, the faster they'll find you. There's a lot of locks in the world that should be opened. Most of them don't have money behind them but even better things, more important ones. I'm not going to do a single thing to stop you from taking it but, Devon...be smart. Exercise as much intelligence and wisdom as you can before using it. The young man got up to leave after verifying on Al's front door that it was, in fact what he hoped it would be. "One more thing," Al said before the young man left. Turning a somewhat wicked smile at him, the young man said, "What do you want, Caspar?" Looking slightly put out, Al said, "Can I have my keys back? You obviously don't need them anymore, even if you did want to give me a rude awakening again." Devon laughed and tossed Al's keys back. "You really are cracked. Are you going to take the key back as soon as I leave?" Al shook his head and said, "I'm kind of scared what I'd be tempted to do with it, if I had it. I don't really think it's a good thing to have unless you don't need it... If that makes sense. It's weird but... if it came from where I think it did, the last man who had it was hanged." Laughing but with a a ton of barely repressed rage on his face, Devon said, "Oh, was he black?" Al shook his head again and said, "A teenage white kid. He was an orphan desperate for food, not even money... My house might be under surveillance since a detective talked to me this afternoon. If you have any money from that ATM on you, I'd suggest you ditch it in a way you can find it later before leaving the apartment complex. Same with the gun." Seeing that Devon was about to leave money in his home, Al said, "Are you crazy!? If they really are out there, my apartment's their second stop!" Smiling wickedly again, the young man dropped a wad of twenties on Al's floor and walked out. Once Devon was gone, he flushed them down the toilet. A few minutes later he felt stupid but two after that, there was knocking and shouting at his door before the rest of his night was ruined. The police officer that dropped Al back off at his house bright and early in the morning said, "I can't believe you made the station give you a ride home. I also can't believe you took it. You don't live in the best neighborhood and now everyone's going to be looking at you funny for one reason or another." Al sighed. "I'm tired and you guys were in such a hurry to get me out and turn my apartment upside down, you didn't even let me grab my wallet. You know, if they'd have only taken the money out, I still could have used the card for a cab home or something." The police officer didn't bother hearing him out and took off before he was even finished speaking. "Rude," Al muttered. For a time after that, things went back to 'normal'. Al went back to his record keeping job after the medical leave was over and funds were tighter than ever but he was making it. With the change in his diet and some light exercise, he was feeling better too. His thoughts were still dull, he still felt sad or a touch extra emotional all the time but he was coping. A scary thought that ran in the back of his mind as he occasionally woke up screaming in the middle of the night from one fuzzy young copy of himself dying in a dream. He thought, "If I get what they leave behind when they die, will I stop being me one day?" It was a sick thing to admit but when one dream self died from burning at the steak as a witch, he was anxiously happy to try the ability that the kid used to clean the inn he'd been working at. He wasn't wholly convinced it had but he felt tired and a little nauseous afterward. The world that the 'witch' had died in wasn't so much fantasy but there were monsters and stuff. He thought it was possible that whatever was in the air in his world wasn't enough to carry the ability and he didn't have enough of whatever could be inside to do it either. At least, not enough to not suffer consequences if he didn't stop trying for the time being. He tried not to feel excited about the possibility of another copy dying and getting something else but it was hard to ignore the rewards for it happening. He felt a little younger, healthier. As more fuzzy echoes of himself passed away, even the cottony feeling in his mind was receding, being replaced by a sharpness that he had taken for granted before. As much as he hated dreaming through the shadowy deaths, he couldn't deny that it was obviously beneficial to him. Nearly a month after Devon's first visit, Al was awakened in the middle of the night yet again. It wasn't to a gun being pointed at his head but a duffel a quarter way filled with old bills. Some of them were dirty and some had been used to do bad things with considering the funny smells and powdery residue on them but they were undeniably spendable. Al blearily looked up at the sharply dressed and much better off looking Devon. That was, aside from nearly bruise-like circles around the edges of the eyes and the slightly older appearance that had nothing to do with his apparel. It wasn't a good sign.
