Installation 1.3

December 23, 2010, Dev's House - Brockton Bay, 9:05 AM

After Leviathan hit Hyderabad, dada was my pillar, the refugee camp was rough, but we endured. Once the waters receded, our house was still standing, but the people who made it a home were gone.

They did officially inform us in about a month or so, it was a foregone conclusion by then. We were officially orphans, taken in by a distant family member, who I guess now were simply eyeing the two families' worth of property that we came with. I still have nothing against them, they were cordial enough, but they weren't Family family. Those two years were a blur, both dada and I poured our all into academics, he was a certified genius, blitzed through high school skipping grades like a mudskipper on steroids. I learnt later that it was during this time that he picked up his side job of managing Thanda cape finances, because he was far better at it than any certified accountant.

It was through those underworld connections that he got himself emancipated, adopted me, unfroze all our family assets, took up a house close enough to his college and my school. We've been living by ourselves since he was 15 and I was 9.

I've always been eternally grateful to the fact that he never tried to be a parent, he was always Dev dada, coolest brother ever. He'd be busy with college, I'd be busy with school, and the nearby cyber cafe, whose owner was perhaps the closest thing I had to a parent, I got to sit at any unoccupied PC and trawl the web, feeding my hungry mind, while the cyber cafe auntie often came, mothered me and fed me home cooked stuff, good times. Dada used to check their ledgers once a month, and they got to pay ultra low taxes. We'd mostly spend dinner together, me regaling him with factoids from the net, him regaling me with stories of the Thanda business shenanigans.

I'd never had much to do with the Garam heroes and villains, they simply didn't have much ties in the community, they were celebrities, celebrities with a lot of collateral damage. The Thanda had criminals, businessmen, mercenaries, all living in the shadier side of the law, but they were a part of the society. People knew them for what they did, not who they fought.

Dada left his side job when he got into an A-list business school with a scholarship and I skipped a grade and went to boarding school starting at the 9th grade. They even gave him a going away party, which he returned from extremely late in the night blushing and grinning like a teenager who'd had their first sexual encounter - he was 20. Heh, nerd.

For me boarding school was a bit tough in the beginning, getting to meet him only during my vacations, where I lived with him in his hostel till his vacations would start and we'd travel around a little. It was also a very different kind of experience, social manipulation, politics, scams, schemes, a microcosm by itself. The jocks were popular, loud, visible, while us nerds controlled information, academic excellence, and contraband... the Garam/Thanda comparison comes naturally.

Then dada aced B-school and got a cushy job in a real estate MNC, which was soon taken over by this US company called Fortress Constructions, who went through dada's resume once (And I'm sure they looked at his 'extra curriculars' more than once. I have no illusions as to which work experience caught their notice), and offered him a package which is fat by even US standards.

I myself found this house online, we both couldn't stand ultra-urban, and he couldn't afford the Captain's Hill properties, those aren't houses, those are fucking estates. Fortress Construction facilitated the purchase, and our Visas.

The Nerd Watch gave me a nice going-away present, two of our trademark spy-glasses and a proper hardened milspec smartphone tweaked by the same surveillance tinker who made the glasses connect to any carrier network, I gave them copies of my porn stash and all the backdoors I'd installed in the school computers, believe me, they came out richer.

We flew down the night before, got into the house, the majority of our luggage was shipped earlier (Fortress sure has very deep pockets). We unpacked the bare minimum, took out the battered 5-photo frame with photos of mine and his parents, and Jhapki, the cape who saved us. Lit a candle, I turned 17 and he was 23, 10 years, we will not forget. Then we went off to sleep, then I became a persistent mana construct, go figure.

Anyway, while thinking about our pasts I had already descended the steps to the living room, dada was sitting quietly with two mugs of tea, the lighter mug's handle pointed toward the seat I was supposed to take, his posture pensive, his fingers flicking through his smartphone. He had a very unassuming presence, a couple inches shorter than me, black hair and beady black eyes being the only traits we shared, he was darker, with a sturdier build and a somewhat intense face, he usually always had a half-smiling, genial expression which I could tell was currently not at 100%.

I sat down in the designated chair, took the mug of tea, raised it in a mock toast, sipped it, Tulsi (Holy Basil) with 3 tablespoons of sugar, perfect. Dada gave me one of his pointed 'I see what you did there' looks, raised his own mug and took a sip. I know this routine, this is what we use when he finds out I've been doing something illegal, his usual next words are something like 'What are your chances of getting caught?' but on this part of the script he deviated.

"How did you trigger?" His tone had no humour.

"ExtraUniversal Alien Being apparently took an interest in me." Neither did mine.

One skeptical eyebrow raise later

"How did you figure that?"

"Left me a mental letter"

"Can you reproduce it for me?"

"I can show you the real thing given some time to grow the power."

"You actually believe this."

"Sherlock's razor."

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

"Yeah, that one."

"Okay, what is the power?"

I raised 3 fingers.

"Access to an ExtraUniversal Energy source, that with time can be trained to perform arbitrary reality manipulation, exponential growth curve. Limited access to a hypercomputer AI. Access to some sort of subspace storage."

He sits for a few moment absorbing the words, I don't need to lie to him, he's my closest confidante, and he's a genius.

"ExtraUniversal as in parallel dimension?"

"No, beyond, higher dimension set altogether I guess."

"A very peculiar combination of powers"

"It follows a theme"

He made a 'go on' gesture.

"ItslikeImacharacterinanRPGgame!"

"What?!"

"Uh, ahem, the nature and growth of powers mimics that of a role playing game character"

He blinked, then cracked and let out a snicker.

"What?! It's awesome dada!"

His snicker turned into a guffaw.

"Pfah! Nerd."

"Don't you forget it, bloody intellectual elitist."

"Teenager."

"Hey! Below the belt bro! And how're you taking this so coolly?"

"Last decade of my life was spent in company of capes, teens with powers are nothing new to me. Also, three quarters of my tea is whiskey."

"Ah... Spare some for me?"

"You just turned 17, I'll bring you the good stuff for tonight."

"Coolest. Brother. Ever"

"Don't you forget it."

We sat sipping our mugs in silence, a weight I didn't know existed seemed to be off my chest.

"So... Show me a trick?"

"Huh? Oh, okay, Inventory."

I pushed the tea in an inventory box, it turned into an icon saying 'Half a mug of Tulsi tea' and I waved my arms around dramatically. Dada's eyes widened very slightly, face vacant, same emotion suppressing habits as mine. Then he broke into a grin that more suited a child than a twentysomething.

"Dude, you've got powers!" He was a genius, didn't mean he was matured.

QUEST COMPLETED!

Come clean to the only person you can trust.

Went and told your brother the truth and revealed your powers before he left for work!

Success:

You got 200 XP.

Relationship with Dev strengthened.

I dismissed the window and gave him my most smug grin.

"Yes, yes I have."

He stood up and raised his hands for a high five, I returned it. Then his expression turned intensely sharp again.

"Are you going to go cavorting around like the Garam capes here?"

"Protectorate and Villains? Not my thing, I'll possibly be getting into fights with the gangs here. Once I'm strong enough to have no reasonable threat from them, of course."

"Do consult me before you take any such actions? I have more experience in these matters. And give me more details about your power later."

"I'll share my notes as soon as I'm done making them. And I have more knowledge! I've done my research dada!"

"All the better to combine knowledge and experience then."

"Uh, true."

"Good, I'll sober up and go to office, there's yesterday's takeout in the fridge, you have to unpack the microwave."

"Leave all the unpacking to me, except for your room's stuff."

"Training?" His eyes narrow again, bloody smartypants.

"Yes." I grinned sheepishly.

"Good. Oh, by the way, I'm meeting the HR head of the Dockworkers' Union for dinner, he's a neighbor, and I need to negotiate a deal about some shipments coming through."

"Some of your shadier shipments?"

"If the only deals I negotiated were shady, wouldn't it create a pattern?"

"Yeah, yeah, just asking."

"Besides, as far as my research tells me, Daniel Hebert is a straight up man. Anyway, you want to come with me? Meet the neighbours?"

"And nod sagely when you discuss pay percentages and tax cuts?"

"No, he's got a daughter, goes to the same school as you've been enrolled into."

"Are you fucking setting me up?!"

"No, you pervert! Remember the talk about social interactions?"

"Yeah, okay, fine, I'll go."

"And she's barely 15. I'd rather not doom her for life by setting her up with you."

"I get it, I get it, ha fucking ha. Now get out and let me unpack, you stink of cheap booze."

"And still smell better than you." He started walking up to his room.

"I can still just get a GED and be rid of high school drama." I mumble to myself.

"Social Interaction, Assfingers! You require it! New country, new people, at least it'll be new drama!" He retorted, already halfway up the staircase.

One time. One time you forget to wash after pooping, you never live it down. I was 4 for god's sake!

"Fine fine, and I was only 4 dammit!" He's off to his room by then.

I got busy unpacking stuff in the most strenuous possible way, while mentally jotting down notes about my power.