Chapter One
"Siblings… Please convene in my room." Lisa said. Over the months, she had stepped up her scientific research. She had inventions that bordered on magic. Pills that enhanced healing to the level of regeneration, nanomachines that could enhance physical abilities to almost superhuman levels and nanomachines that would enhance muscle memory to accelerate training.
As a result, Lynn had already set numerous world records that wouldn't likely be surpassed any time soon. Her abilities weren't superhuman… Yet. But they were at the very peak of human ability for an adult. She could run at 35 miles an hour and could ride her bike at about 60 miles an hour.
She had refused the regeneration pills and the enhancement pills. But the nanomachines that enhanced her memory and as a side effect, caused her to develop faster physically as a result of unconscious muscle memory, she accepted. Furthermore, she was doing much better in school due to the fact that she could repeat back to her teacher word for word what they said in class that day and took it down on the computer by memory after school.
She was getting straight A+'s in school now. Even Lisa and Lincoln were impressed. Lincoln was well known for being a very high achiever in school, and Lynn was matching him now. Because of the ease with which she was able to do her school work, she was able to double up on martial arts, sports, and other athletics. She was believed by her teachers and fellow students to be a shoe in for the Olympics.
She had mastered multiple martial arts and was mid to high level in a few others due to her enhanced memory from the nanomachines. She claimed to be a master in Taekwondo, Hapkido, Judo, Capoeira and Baguazhang. She's mid- to high level in Jujitsu, Karate, and MMA. She was improving very quickly and her muscle memory allowed her to build her speed very quickly. She was already running at 35 miles an hour. Only six months ago, she was only 32 miles an hour.
It was almost frightening how talented Lynn was even before. Six months after she accepted the nanomachines, she was practically a machine herself. She still wanted to increase her foot speed by 5 miles and her bike speed by 20. But what could Lisa need now? Did she need test subjects for her latest project? Lincoln sighed and sat down.
Lisa's laboratory had gotten much more advanced, and because of the money she was making from patents on inventions like her lie detecting goggles, she was building a much higher tech laboratory beneath the yard in her bunker. The bunker was still there, but it had been expanded immensely and was as close to sterile as any laboratory could be. She had machines and chemicals that were incredibly advanced. It was amazing what Lisa could do down there.
Today though, they were just gathered in Lisa's room. Whatever was happening, Lincoln was sure it wasn't good. She rarely wanted people in her room for longer than a few seconds, especially when there was the risk that they would touch her things. Still, if someone needed help, they were always welcome. Unfortunately, the look on her face suggested that something was very wrong.
"Greetings, siblings. I want to warn you of a slight… Whoopsie daisy that I may have made."
"What did you do, brah?" Luna asked."
"Well… The other night, I disposed of chemicals… Improperly I might add. I put them in a sealed container, but I didn't realize that the container was deficient and it seems it must have leaked into the water supply, because when I tested the water, I found trace amounts of the chemical.
"The container had approximately 7 liters of liquid chemical in it and it seems that approximately 95% of the liquid has leaked from the container and has contaminated the water supply. It's unfortunate that the chemical only requires approximately 1 molecule per 4,000 liters to affect the changes I so mentioned in humans. It's fortunate that the changes don't seem to be negative.
"It seems the chemical is powerful enough to potentially contaminate a large portion of the world. Taking into account predicted weather patterns over the next… Two months, I expect that the entire world will be in possession of chemically tainted water within those two months. The chemical is very powerful and seems to be replicating itself within the water supply using various impurities as a catalyst.
"Furthermore, the combination of two Hydrogen and one Oxygen, namely water, seems to have catalyzed a major reaction. The impurities in the water seem to have been transformed into more molecules of the chemical. I don't know how the chemical perpetuates itself like that, but I've begun studying its chemical composition in order to determine all of its properties. I believe you may develop symptoms in the near future." Lisa said. The siblings nodded.
"I've run simulated tests of possible reactions, and none of them seem harmful. However, in the event that any of you begin to develop certain… Abilities that you didn't have before, please come to me immediately, regardless of what you're doing at the time." Lisa said. The siblings all gasped, somewhere between disbelief and excitement at the possible meaning of what Lisa had said.
"Abilities? What are you literally talking about?" Lori asked, still on her cell phone with Bobby.
"First of all, you're 17 now and graduated high school. Stop using the word 'literally' every other sentence and in every way but the right way. Second of all, I'm not entirely sure. I want you to report to me on anything odd happening. The… Original tainting of the water with said chemicals happened approximately seven days ago.
"If you were going to display any strange conditions, it would have happened by now. However, I still believe that you may have displayed strange symptoms but just written them off. Please recount for me everything you've noticed that seemed out of the ordinary over the past seven days, no matter how small." Lisa said.
"I chose a Lotto ticket for Mom and Dad. They were only buying one and I asked if I could choose it. I went through a bunch of them and finally chose one. We won 2.5 million dollars on it! Lynnsanity strikes again!" Lynn shouted, pumping her fist.
"I see… That was quite a lucky break. But one time hardly establishes a pattern." Lisa said.
"After that, I was playing basketball with my friends and I scored a basket at half court over my shoulder." Lynn said.
"Impressive. But it could still come down to your skill in sports in general." Lisa said.
"I increased my speed by 1.5 miles an hour in the past seven days."
"I suspect you may have some sort of ability that manipulates probability in some way."
"Oh wow… So specific." Lynn said. Lisa flipped Lynn off.
"Probability Manipulation is my first guess. But it could theoretically be Causality Manipulation."
"You're gonna have to explain, Lis… Remember, I'm an athlete, not a book nerd." Lynn said.
"Of course. Probability is the likelihood of something happening. For instance, if I roll this 20 sided die, there's approximately a 5% chance of me getting a 20, though realistically it could be slightly different due to unforeseen defects in the construction of the die, leading to one side being heavier than the others. Furthermore, the odds of me getting a 20 twice in a row decrease to insignificant odds, approximately 0.0025%. As you continue, your odds get lower.
"Probability Manipulation is the ability to change those odds. Consider it a limited form of bending reality pertaining strictly to odds. Meanwhile, Causality is the relationship between cause and effect. How many tickets did you go through before you chose the winning ticket?"
"At least twenty. Why?"
"Because it may be that you intuitively manipulated causality by not choosing the ticket the register jockey initially handed our parents. It's quite possible that you intuitively knew without any conscious knowledge when to stop flipping through tickets and by so doing, you manipulated the cause and effect of the situation. You affected a winning ticket by causing yourself to search through tickets until you got one that seemed good. Am I making sense?" Lisa asked.
"More or less." Lucy said. Lisa actually smiled.
"Good… Lynn… You've gone over some odd occurrences in the past few days. Since I haven't got the time or interest in listening to all of you elucidate everything potentially strange that's happened to you over the past week, please submit the lists to me in writing."
"Um… Lis, can I have a moment of your time?" Lincoln asked. Lisa nodded.
"Of course… But please make it quick, Elder Brother."
"Well… I've been feeling really energetic for the past few days. I go running with Lynn in the mornings. I can keep up with her almost the whole time, and I still have energy afterwards. I don't need to eat much.
"I'm better at Dodgeball than Jordan, I'm killing it at soccer and baseball…"
"I see… Hmm… Can you go a little deeper… Tell me more about specifics you can identify."
"Well… I did the mile run the other day and I ran the whole thing in two minutes and still wasn't out of breath. The teacher said he wondered where I'd been hiding all that ability."
"Indeed. 30 miles an hour is faster than the fastest Olympic runner by approximately 2 miles an hour."
"Ah, that's nothing! I can run 5 miles faster."
"Well… You are two years older than Lincoln, and have been training most of your life for that kind of thing. In addition, you have nanomachines that assist in your growth.
"It's hardly a surprise that your level is still above your brother's." Lisa said. Lynn scowled, but said nothing.
"And… I haven't been very hungry lately. I haven't really needed to drink a lot and I haven't needed to sleep much…
"I've been good to go on about 5+ hours of sleep at the most, sometimes 3 or 4. Plus, I need to exercise hard during the day to work off enough energy to sit still in the evening and even go to bed. I-I don't know what's going on. It's weird." Lincoln said.
"I see… I've been developing a series of watches that will monitor your vital signs and energy levels and even monitor brain waves.
"If I'm correct, they'll continue to monitor all biological activity and then give readouts on what sort of powers you possess. I have one for each of us. They're remotely connected to my computer at home and they'll give me readings and predictions for power types. However, I strongly recommend you keep diaries on observations of your powers. I have diaries right here that you can use." Lisa said, handing out a sleek silver watch to each sibling.
"This will connect remotely to your Central Nervous Systems and will feed on your own body's energy in order to analyze the nature of your powers. You needn't worry about it wearing you out or causing negative physical effects. I've developed it to subsist on approximately 0.1% of your daily output of energy. Because of that, you'll never have any trouble with it being unduly parasitic.
"In addition, after the watch fully analyzes your powers, it will begin to develop training regimens to allow you to cultivate your powers and your bodies. So go on… Go about your daily lives." Lisa said.
"And know that you should be careful with any powers you discover until you know how they work and can control them.
"In addition, Lynn… Remember that the more you use your Probability Manipulation, the more likely it is to fail. For instance. If I were to punch you in the face, what would you say would be the odds that I would break your nose?"
"Less than 1%, probably." Lynn said.
"Right. What if I punched you in the face 1,000 times? Odds are, one of those times would result in a broken nose. It's the same for luck or probability. Say you use your Probability Manipulation consciously to win a 2.5 million dollar or more ticket… Ten times. Well great. You have approximately 25 million dollars. But the odds that you would win even once are astronomical.
"You've reduced the chances to almost 0. And once chances get to 0, probability can no longer be worked in your favor, because upping your chances just went from tweaking your luck to breaking the laws of reality, which your power cannot do." Lisa said.
"Okay. I understand." Lynn said.
"Do you really?" Lisa asked.
"No. But I get that I shouldn't overuse my power, regardless of what I understand about the laws of probability." Lynn said. Lisa nodded.
"Precisely. That's all you need to know." Lisa said, Lynn nodded. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm isolating the chemicals that I spilled and turning them into a serum that can affect the changes at will."
"Are you sure that's safe, Lisa? What if you give the serum to evil people and they use it to hurt people?"
"Science is neither good nor evil. It's all a matter of how it's used. I can't control how other people use my inventions." Lisa said. Lincoln rolled his eyes.
"I'm sure that's exactly what the person who invented gunpowder said.
"Still, an inventor has a certain responsibility… To within the limits of their ability to make sure that their inventions are used responsibly. I'm sure that you could develop a test of some sort to determine whether someone deserves the serum. Naturally, some people will be able to fool the test… Or because the serum is in the water supply, will gain powers without the deliberate use of your serum. But still… Just selling it to anyone who can pay is pretty irresponsible on your part."
"I disagree. But I do see your point. I'll develop some way to determine the trustworthiness of a subject before I consent to selling them my serum. Perhaps it will at least prevent some evil people from getting their hands on it. I think you'll find in the long run that the amount of harm prevented by such measures is negligible at best, though." Lisa said. Lincoln sighed. He knew she couldn't control the world. But at least she was putting an effort into controlling who got their hands on superpowers.
"Disband, everyone." Lisa said.
"I still have a great deal of research to do. You don't need to continue to report to me on your powers, as your watches will do that in your stead, and they'll likely do it with much greater accuracy than a human, even a superpowered human could."
The siblings nodded and headed about their business.