milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's late afternoon when someone who really looks like he doesn't belong here saunters in from the front door. (It's probably the uniform.) There's surprise on his face at first - who isn't surprised when a bar you've never been to before shows up where your closet should be? - but the expression is soon replaced with a big smile.

There's a blue flash and he's at the bar ordering a cup of coffee, black, and then another flash and he's seated in one of the comfy armchairs by the window. Legs crossed ankle over knee, he sits back and watches the display with an odd curiosity.

This has to be it. The place the workers at the Commission only whisper about.

Number Five has finally arrived at Milliways.

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"You time travelled?" He knows it's not impossible - he does it, after all - but he's never met anyone else who could without a briefcase.

"Reset," Wilford says. "It's a little different. You can only go back. They only hand out licenses for going forward if you've got Jeff Bezos money to hire the eggheads who make it work."

He shrugs. "People do it anyway, but I ain't that stupid."

He's pretty stupid sometimes, but at least he knows his limits.

"I can do both." Just not well.

"What's a reset?"

Sounds like Five got stupid to Wilford, but he doesn't voice that.

"Exactly what it sounds like. You fuck something up, or get hit by a bus, you reset and do it again."

He pauses for a moment, and then pulls an old, leather-bound journal from his inventory. From Five's perspective, it simply appears in his hand from absolutely nowhere. Wilford opens it up to a random page and holds it out for Five to see. Each line is a date and time, followed by a brief note.

"Just pick one and go. Most people aren't dumb enough to go back 15 years to settle a grudge."

Wilford is.

He was thirteen and arrogant. Of course he was stupid.

Fives leans in to read the page of the journal that appeared from nowhere, but it's not the weirdest thing he's seen.

"You have to die?"

Wilford shakes his head, ready to snatch the journal back the instant he suspects Five will try to snatch it. Wilford's dates are almost daily at the point he opened to, usually in the evening. Occasionally a day gets skipped, or logged twice a few hours later. But for the most part, he seems very careful about leaving his options wide open.

"You can go back at any time. If something kills you and you're not supposed to die, you'll go back to the most recent. I made a name for myself exposing a surgeon who liked to kill people on the table a bunch of times before he actually did his job."

Five isn't going to steal it. What use is it to him?

"Everyone where you're from can do this?"

Wilford's used to being cautious. If someone steals your save log, you're fucked.

"After a certain age. Kids usually can't, but they don't really need to either."

They just bounce.

"So it's not really all that special." Why that matters to him is pretty obvious. Daddy issues much?

Wilford shakes his head, and blips the journal back out of existence.

"Imagine my surprise finding this place full of a bunch of squishy wimps who are all over if you hit one too hard."

"We're all unique, different powers." But they sure don't feel special anymore.

"What are the cape laws like where you're at?" Wilford asks.

He knows this is a touchy subject for a lot of capes and cape-adjacents around here, but he's going to keep asking until he gets a level-headed answer from someone.

"Cape laws?" Genuinely confused, he frowns at Wilford. "What does that mean?"

Fascinating.

"Super powers and shit. People like you," Wilford says. "Most places start regulating as soon as people start walking through walls for good or evil. The missus needs to be licensed to give palm readings in our basement."

But if their world doesn't have this regulation, that really only leaves a few options.

"You're telling me you're the first ones doing this?"

"We were. Only people on the planet with gifts so far as I know." He thinks about that a lot.

"We did whatever we wanted. People loved us."

"That changes real quick," Wilford says. "Soon as someone starts doing it to rob banks, or terrorise little old ladies at the mall, shit gets real for everyone."

So far, Wilford's met someone who can travel through time and space, and a medium from the same world. So this isn't a random, singular mutation.

"We regulated the industry back in the 20s, when they started organising. If you're doing cape shit, you need a license and insurance. You do cape shit without it, fines or jail. Gives them some nice charges to stack on the assholes out there causing trouble."

"There's only 43 of us spread over the world. We seven are the only ones I'm aware of, so they don't seem to be causing trouble."

Besides, time cops are bad enough.

"And we don't wear capes."

"Nobody actually wears capes," Wilford says.

He thinks about the numbers though.

"So your old man, what? Rounded you up and stole you away?"

"Someone must have."

Then he shrugs. "He tracked us down and bought us. Gave us numbers."

"Well, that's some cult leader bullshit if I ever heard it."

Wilford says this completely unironically, and without humour.

"I understand he's loaded?" His tone skirts the edge of a question and a statement, unsure quite how to follow it up.

"Billions." He confirms that without enthusiasm. It didn't really seem to make a difference in his life. Aside from the not wanting for anything, living in a virtual mansion and being part of a secret superhero team.

That seems to ring a bell. He nods, swirling everything around in his head.

"The eye's a dead end. It's what people who don't know better think a glass eye looks like. So what's being fronted by a fake prosthetics company?"

Prosthetics being a catalyst for an apocalypse doesn't seem likely, but without any other information, Wilford can't rule it out either.

He shakes his head. "The company isn't important. It's the person who had it blown out of their head. Or taken off their person by my brother." It was noted that Luther's hands weren't bloody.

"It's not a dead end. The person who owned that eye is somehow linked."

Wilford shakes his head. The eye's unwearable, but the kid's really fixating on it.

"So why'd your old man go gathering up a bunch of super babies?"

Sorry, Five. Wilford is properly interested now, and is going into full interrogation mode.

Because it's important!

He shrugs again. "Couldn't have known we had abilities at birth. I expect it was the nature of our birth that got him intrigued."