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I awake refreshed, yesterday's drudgery a barely present memory like a vodka hangover - a mere hint of an ache. It's not every time that I get such a clear Event reading and I'm vaguely optimistic about what today will bring. Making first contact relies greatly on attitude, and exuding confidence in my prediction can sway more minds than I would have believed before my TCA acclimatisation classes. I check my communicator and see that today's overwatch has already scheduled Monolith to go with me. Not a bad choice; it always lends more weight to have someone visibly enhanced along. I just hope he's not too imposing - it's better that they listen out of respect for the TCA rather than fear of a meta. Quick shower and I throw on my work clothes, sending up another thanks to our future for the slip technology that lets me live a vaguely normal life. My leathers, cloak and facemask concealed behind the holo unit's display, I take a brisk walk to Hyland Lake park and wait. The flyer lands in the field fifteen minutes later.
We don't generally use these to cart people around, but the first impression we make will be the most important one, and it's worth this slight extravagance. Monolith nods and hands me a Quofee; he knows how hard it is to get that stuff as a permanent field operator. Oh, everyone claims they finally got the beans to grow in a gravity field, but it just doesn't taste the same. There's always a small stash at headquarters though, and I nod my thanks at his forethought. We take off cleanly and quietly and let the autopilot head for Uptown - there's java to be enjoyed, and no rush. Overwatch expects around forty percent habitation at this time of morning, enough for the first visit. It's easier to think of just numbers now.
I make the call to the property owners, following the slightly modified template for metahuman activity follow-ups. It's modified for obvious reasons - there aren't too many precogs around, at least not stable ones. This is the easy part, and they absorb the information in silence. I can almost hear the financial wheels spinning furiously as they ponder how to best deal with a potential loss like this. It's easy because they have no emotional attachment to the property, it's just a folder in a cabinet somewhere to be evaluated and weighed. We make arrangements for them to follow-up with a "Letter from the Management" and to notify us should the property change hands. All very businesslike, the call concludes swiftly and I sit back, mentally checking off another task.
The vehicle creaks as all six hundred plus pounds of Monolith step out onto the Uptown pad. His appearance is a total meta cliche - granite-gray skin, almost literally chiseled features that you could cut yourself on, and a basso profundo voice to complete the ensemble. The cliche would be perfect if he was meek as a kitten under the tough exterior, but it breaks down there. Monolith is ex-military - he never said which, and no one asks - and he's just as tough and coldly efficient as his features. He leads the way, dressed as usual in the tan fatigues the TCA has enhanced with a compound that won't tear on contact with his body. He can't really feel the texture of the cloth, so he never was sure whether he was walking around in rags or not. It's funny, more power than a small tactical nuke and the man's biggest worry is whether his laundry is done. I follow behind, now decked out in my leathers, voluminous cloak and full face mask. I'd be more comfortable in my regular slacks and shirt, but this isn't the time to be comfortable.
The first apartment is occupied by a young couple and currently only the woman is there. She is a short and t-shirt clad neo-hippie, all dark hair and big eyes getting bigger as she opens the door and sees us. She stammers out: "Yes?"
Monolith launches into the spiel with no preamble. We have a lot of ground to cover. "TCA, ma'am. Monolith and Harbinger. Are you familiar with Harbinger's work?"
She's silent for a moment and frowns - my stomach starts its slow descent in response. As used I am to the explanations I never really get into the groove of doing so smoothly. She's quick though, this one. She responds shakily "Ye-, yes I am. How..." she has to stop for a moment and collect herself. "How soon? How... how bad?"
Monolith waits and I step forward. "Between one week and 1 month. The entire building will be gone." I hasten to add "It's a very high probability reading. Do you understand what that means, ma'am?"
Now we wait for the reaction. Fortunately it's a favorable one, as she nods decisively and say "Yes, I understand. Thank you."
It never ceases to amaze me that they sometimes think to say that, and I always get a little hitch in my chest even as I utter the sacred mantra, "It's our job, ma'am."
I pause, letting her collect herself a little more.
There's only a few items left on our list now. I give her the TCA's holocard and the short spiel about providing temporary accomodations, as well as letting her know that we will be monitoring the site daily. In return we get her to sign that she will has heard and understood the import of the situation. That's it. We can't officially ask if they choose to believe and leave, or scoff and stay - we just need to do our dilligence and get them to sign off on the sheet. Fortunately in her case that's not an issue, and I can already see her attention fading from us and to the tasks that lie ahead of her, newly armed with this knowledge.
Monolith breaks the silence and says that we must see to the rest of the building, and we move on. She thanks us again almost absent-mindedly as she closes the door, and I'm glad. This one will live, at least on this occasion. Out of personal curiosity I tap briefly into my talent and see absolutely nothing. Always a good sign.
Over the next 3 hours we run the gamut of textbook reactions. Anger, laughter, denial, disbelief, calm acceptance, resentment and even hate - they all make their appearance here. Some even take a swing at us, but in Monolith's case they can only hurt themselves, and in my case it's completely futile. I don't even notice personal attacks any more - I'm simply not there when the projectile, fist or even explosion intersects the space where I should be.
After a few of the latter, I'm once again glad that the impersonal template exists. The TCA definitely has supernormal intervention procedures down, that's for sure. Trouble doesn't strike until later in the day when an irate old man straight out of Scooby Doo becomes convinced that we've come to finish him off for his sins, and starts beating on Monolith with his cane while frothing at the mouth. After an intervention involving his neighbours whom we fortunately visited earlier, we manage to calm him down and get him to sign off on the form. I hate to admit this, but at this point I don't really care if he understood what he was signing or not.
I feel like a total heel later when I check back at HQ. Turns out the the old fart's realtime birthday was only 20 years ago - he fought in the Timeslip War as Doomcannon and Doomcannon II and like countless others gained, lost, regained and lost again a fairly significant amount of power. A little confusion is to be expected and I make a note to visit him unofficially later and apologize. Well, if he's feeling lucid anyway.
Eventually we knock on the last door and sign off on the last resident. The hardest part is as always, making them realise that if nothing at all happens, the plan worked perfectly. This is the main reason why we go for that first impression - even if they have the boy who cried wolf syndrome through previous word of mouth, and are skeptical, we hope that enough meta-glitter will convince them. That's right; all of our successes exult in the absence of proof.
We leave on schedule, always a good sign. It means things went mostly according to template, and my past experience shows that generally this translates to high survivability. Throughout the next week I'll be checking back to see if anything changes, and trying to persuade those who haven't left to do so. I'll be on-call for the relocation efforts as well, since I'm a familiar face now, and that's in-between other scheduled patrols for other Events. I can't say that I'm happy, but I'm content to be this busy - it means lives are being saved thanks to my talent. I'm making a difference; it's all anyone can ask for.
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- How did it go?
- Good. He's stable and actually seems to be thriving.
- Repeated exposure effect?
- Minimal. No change in acuity. By the way, the projected survival ratio is 60/10.
- Great. Let's lower it a bit, something like 50/20 equivalent next time. We really need to be speeding this up.
- You got it. I see a good one in mid October, that do?
- Perfect. You up for lunch?
- Sure, let me just send this off.
*
click*
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