I’m not sure if Donna had a better time of it on her recruitment mission. I mean, someone did try to blow me up and Leah’s dad tried to kill her. But other than that, my short time with Leah was pretty quiet and uneventful. For Donna, the early morning trip from New York to Pennsylvania had only moments of peace and quiet. On the way out of the alley, Brenda commented at length about the slickness of Donna’s entrance into the night’s drama. Several TV and film comparisons were made. Several questions were also asked regarding Donna’s power to which Donna replied, several times, that she would answer those questions in the car. On the way to the car Brenda also made a detailed commentary on how epic of a show that she herself had put on while fending off her attackers.
She ended with, “I’m awesome, right?’
“Uh huh,” was Donna’s reply.
The car was only a block away but still too far for Donna. Once inside the car, without being asked, Brenda decided to divulge her romantic backstory which involved Rudy and other questionable partner choices. Donna smiled and nodded. Then Brenda nodded off after a few minutes. It was some welcomed silence. Donna drove through the early morning darkness and was counting on taking a nap at the motel before we moved on. She took her time, relying on her instincts to guide her to where and when she needed to be. As the sun came up, Brenda woke again and the questions resumed. Donna answered them honestly and as best she could.
“Can you turn it off?” asked Brenda.
“Nope. It’s on all the time,” answered Donna.
There was a minute of silence where Brenda’s facial expressions moved back and forth from thoughtful, to confused, and various spots in between. Then Brenda just stared at Donna. Donna noticed out of the corner of her eye.
“What?” she asked
“I’m trying to see…” Brenda began.
“If I know what you are going to say next,” Donna completed.
“Ha, I knew it. What else was I going to say?” from Brenda.
Donna looked like she was praying for the serenity to accept the things she could not change, the courage to change the things she could, and the wisdom to know the difference. She also wished she didn’t have to deal with a talker this early in the morning when she hadn’t slept and didn’t have any coffee.
“It doesn’t work like that. I knew what you were going to say because you were committed to saying it. There weren't a lot of other ways you were going to go. I can’t read minds,” said Donna.
Sometimes Donna longed for a power that was easier to explain. Like mind reading. It would have been equally a pain in the ass to master, probably. But easier to explain.
“So… You can only predict something that is definitely going to happen?” Brenda asked, scratching her head.
In her mind, Donna continued her prayer, “Please lord, let this girl chill the hell out for just a little while.”
Out of her mouth came, “I can sense the possibilities and probabilities of things. If I focus I can feel all the possible choices and outcomes. I can also see things, but that requires me to close my eyes and be still. If I concentrate really hard I can determine the most likely outcome of something further out, and yes, predict the future. But that takes a lot of effort and I can pass out if I push myself too hard. Sometimes it just costs me a migraine from hell and a nose bleed.”
“Ew,” from Brenda.
“Just breathe,” Donna told herself.
Then she continued.
“Most of the time how I operate is on instinct more than anything else,” she said.
Brenda had a thought.
“So, like, you can predict moves in a fight and react to them. So you’re like a Jedi then?” she asked.
In an impressive feat of self-control, Donna did not roll her eyes before answering. And she ignored the space wizard comparison.
“In a fight I can anticipate the other person’s moves and react accordingly. It’s less prediction and more like I let myself flow towards the most favorable outcome,” replied Donna.
“So then you know where this conversation is going, right?” was the next question.
“I can feel the most likely path, yes,” was the reply.
“Seems like you could say and do the perfect things to get what you wanted,” said Brenda with an upturned brow.
“I could. But that road leads to something I refuse to become,” said Donna.
Brenda was half joking and was caught off guard by the serious answer. Donna confirmed that she could be a master manipulator if she wanted to. She could say the perfect thing to anyone to get what she wanted. I’ve seen her do it when we were in tight spots. It was not something she liked doing because she feared how easy it would be to remove people’s freedom of choice. As scary as that realization was for Brenda, it became another reason to trust the woman driving the car. Donna gave an honest answer. She could have been bullshitting, but Brenda has a built in BS meter. Her powers gave her a limited ability to sense physiological changes in people. She could sense changes in breathing and blood pressure, giving her the ability to tell if someone was lying. Not wanting to linger on the thought of what an evil Donna would be like, Brenda moved on.
“How long did it take you to get control?” she asked.
“A while. At first I was okay, but then my brain kind of went into partial shutdown. I mean, I was functional. But I was operating basically on autopilot. I could eat, sleep, work and whatever, but I had almost no personality or emotion. I think my mind did that to cope with all the overwhelming input. Like it was trying to conserve processing power,” said Donna.
“Shit,” replied Brenda.
“It took close to a year to return to normal and get control. And I have to keep some level of control and focus at all times to stay functional,” said Donna.
“What happens if you don’t focus?” Brenda asked.
“If I let my mind wander, I can just zone out and completely lose track of where I am. I get a rush of images and sensations of everything that might happen, like getting hit by hurricane force winds in my brain,” said Donna.
“Damn,” replied Brenda.
“You have no idea. I think if I did read minds, it would be the equivalent of having the constant background noise of everyone's thoughts running through my head. At least that’s how I imagine it probably works,” said Donna.
“How do you sleep?” Brenda asked.
“Not very well,” was the reply.
This earned another few minutes of silence from Brenda. But of course, because of the nature of Donna’s gift, she knew exactly when that reprieve was going to end. She counted down the seconds in her head.
3… 2… 1…
“So, basically, you can predict the future within a certain cone of probability and fine tune predictions require more concentration. I’m guessing the closer the event, the clearer the picture because there are fewer possible outcomes,” said Brenda.
She felt happy with her summation. She smiled in appreciation of her own intelligence. She was also mentally patting herself on the back. Donna wanted this part of the trip to end so I could take on the question load for a little while. But in the meantime, she was the only one who could really explain her power.
“Basically, yes. So much goes into what will happen, everyone’s possible decisions, all the random things that can happen, the further out something may happen, the harder it is for me to see clearly. So many possibilities happen the further in the future I look, it can be hard to sort through the chaos. Unless it’s something big,” Donna said.
“Like?” asked Brenda.
“Imagine if everyone’s lives were like strings crossing over each other, running parallel, affecting each other or not meeting at all. If something happens that affects everyone’s lives, all their strings pull in and meet at a single point, a convergence,” said Donna.
“Such as?” asked Brenda
“Natural disasters, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes… Things people don’t have an influence over. Sometimes man made things like planes crashing into buildings,” said Donna.
“Someone gets superpowers and goes nuts?” asked Brenda
“That, too,” Donna conceded.
Brenda had a thought. Donna had hoped to not discuss this before she had everyone together, but she knew the question forming in Brenda's head. Brenda prided herself on making light of situations. She did it quite well. Sometimes annoyingly so. Even though she was tempted to do so in this situation, the implications were a bit too heavy. So she stuck with a serious question.
“Something big is going to happen, isn’t it? Another convergence. And you are looking for people somehow involved,” asked Brenda.
“Yes,” replied Donna.
“Which includes me and this other girl?” asked Brenda.
“You ask a lot of questions,” said Donna.
“You should have seen this coming. Literally. Don’t evade,” said Brenda with a serious look.
“Yes, you and the other girl have some important roles. So do my associate and I,” Donna replied.
Then something else clicked in Brenda’s head.
“Ooooh. Something different is afoot. You don’t know what is going to happen, do you? That is why you’re being vague,” she said.
Donna sighed. She knew this too was coming but it did not make it any easier to talk about.
“I can sense something big is going to happen but I’m having difficulty seeing what it is. I can get feelings for times and places, but... I can’t sense who or what triggers it, what happens after, or even exactly what it is,” said Donna.
“Because... Difficult to see? Always in motion is the future?” asked Brenda.
Donna took a breath.
“That’s part of it, yes,” she replied.
“Part of it?” asked Brenda.
It was time for another painful admission.
“There are blind spots. Gaps in the timelines. They are like voids in time and space that I don’t know are there. I can’t sense them,” she said.
Donna visibly looked defeated admitting this. This was her gift. It helped define her. But it had a major flaw. Not only was she essentially blind to some things, there were certain things Donna knew had to happen but she could not see or sense the whys or the hows surrounding them. Even worse, something continuously blocked her from speaking about them. It was a mental block that she could not find a way around no matter how much she tried. Donna also had to deal with not being able to sense how someone would react to her sometimes unreliable power. She could only hope she could explain things enough to win someone’s trust. For Brenda, the revelation of Donna’s failing ability was disconcerting on a few levels. She thought this lady might be the one person who actually knew what was going on in this crazy world. That’s why she got in this stupid car.
“So something might happen that you are completely unprepared for?” asked Brenda.
“Yes,” Donna responded.
Brenda let that sink in for a bit. This information was troubling but Donna was at least upfront with it. It looked rough for her to admit this limitation. Donna was also showing extreme trust being in a confined space with someone of Brenda’s power set. Brenda could have killed Rudy and his friends in the alley and easily made the evidence disintegrate. But she was not a killer. So after careful consideration, Brenda decided that no one is perfect.
“That’s okay. I’m a little weird, too…. Besides the obvious,” she said, waving her hands over her clothes.
Donna could tell there was something else Brenda was referring to besides powers and fashion choice. It was something Donna hadn’t seen or sensed. She had the basic non-powered human instinctual feeling that she didn’t want to know, but it piqued her curiosity too much.
“What else exactly is besides the obvious?” Donna asked cautiously.
“I see dead people,” Brenda said like it was just another normal thing.
Donna didn’t say anything. Her face said, “God damn it.”
Brenda continued, a little too happy with herself.
“Didn’t see that one coming, did ya? Anyway, not like Night of the Living Dead. I see, like, ghosts. Well, a ghost. Well, not a ghost exactly. Well, it’s kind of like a ghost… a woman, I think. Kinda in my peripheral vision. I mean I think it’s a woman. It’s….. woman-shaped.” Brenda said, moving her hands in the air, tracing out the form of a woman. “She just kinda shows up and stares at me from time to time.”
More awkward silence unfolded as Donna tried to process what if anything that information meant. She had gotten used to discovering blind spots to a certain degree. But the supernatural was completely out of left field. She really hoped ghosts were something else she didn’t have to worry about.
“The ghost. I feel like I know something about it. Or I’m supposed to. It might not be a ghost. I think. I always feel like the answer is right there in my head but I can’t reach it. It’s, like, important. Dammit.” she said, looking like she was concentrating hard. “Nah. Still nothing.”
There was a minute of silence before Brenda asked her next question.
“Sooooo…. What happened the last time when your abilities didn’t work?”
Donna took a breath. This was something that she could address.
“The last time I knew for sure, it was seven years ago. It’s when I met my associate who we are going to meet up with,” said Donna.
Brenda lit up and clapped her hands excitedly.
“Yay. Epic backstory time. Lay it out for me,” said Brenda.
Donna prepared herself. Or tried to. There were going to be more questions. But she needed Brenda to trust her and the best way forward was to be honest. So she told Brenda the epic backstory of how we met. Brenda was quiet during the recitation. It was too good to miss any details. Donna finished the tale and they were nearly to the hotel when the huge fireball rose in the distance. The sight was so surreal that neither reacted until the sound of the blast reached them a couple of seconds later.
Brenda let out a “What the fu…” before Donna cut the car hard to the left, across the grass median, across the other lanes of the highway, and onto the access road. Then she turned hard onto the nearest street. She perfectly cut through all the traffic with ease making sure no one would crash. Even the drivers that had to swerve were able to recover without causing an accident. Donna drove fast down the side street while Brenda sat in stunned silence. She continued about two miles down and then turned right onto a smaller road for another two miles. Then she skidded the car to a stop on the dirt shoulder. Away from the highway, this area was mostly forested and quiet. No cars would pass while they were there. Donna cursed herself silently and looked over to Brenda.
“Are you okay?” she asked Brenda.
“The hell just happened!?” replied Brenda with wide eyes and a frazzled look on her face.
“The unexpected,” Donna said calmly.223Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL9KUTmR7iY
