02 Two feet and a heartbeat

-PR-

I can't find myself.

As I leave my room, I pass the window between the residential section of the Aldrin's house and the work area. Liv is in there with her Saturday morning kids' class, who wave as they see me. I wave back, a smile on my face, and walk outside into the sunshine.

"Saul Moss", or any other clever versions of the name, don't exist in this universe. And for that matter, I don't exist. I burned some light, and there's no one with a significant genetic match to me or my relatives. Facerec turned up no counterpart.

Fun Fact: My country is a US territory in this universe instead of becoming independent from British rule back in the 70s. Just like I wrote it.

Shades on. Sunscreen? Yeah, I got sunscreen.

The local Department of Metahuman Affairs - it used to be the Metahuman Affairs Division, but they got tired of the obvious acronym jokes - was rather understanding about me being a refugee from another dimension. Turned out they had paperwork for that. After running a discreet check of their own, they handed me the forms.

Took me three minutes. Nice to have a supercomputer on your finger.
(pride)
Stretching? Nah. Ring, bring up the sports HUD.

Speaking of checks, we've been frozen out of the bank robbery investigation, on account of not actually being registered superheroes with any sort of investigative training or authorization. The cops and DMA have even got their computers and offices magically warded and airgapped. The local office where I signed up, not so much.

I set off at a sprint, and keep going until my pulse redlines. Past the Iceland frozen food store, which apparently did surprisingly well in the US. I remember my final year of Uni in the UK where one moved in across the street from my flat, with a liter of Sunny D for a pound.

Next door to an even cheaper food store.

With an ASDA down the road.

And a Burger King around the corner.

And I discovered the wonders of ordering takeout online.

And that's why I'm jogging.

Turns out there doesn't seem to be any actual expiry date on the metaphorical juice I have stored. I find desire easiest to work with, but I'm, well, I'm leery of being overtaken by it. I mean, just look at what Paul did in With This Ring. Giving pizza to gangsters, baking extremely large cakes, and accidentally building a harem like he's some sort of anime protagonist. I'm talking Asterisk War levels of obliviousness here. And this is coming from a guy who is so oblivious, he once effectively asked a female friend on a date without realizing he was interested in her.

Ah, high school.

Speaking of thwarted romantic interests, I'm coming up on Ms. McGillicuty's house. She's taken to watering her garden a lot more since the tall, black, reasonably symmetrical man started jogging past on Saturday mornings.

I wave at her as I turn the corner. She waves back, and when she thinks I can't see her, stares at my rear.

She writes fanfiction. I can't cast stones.

I've had to cut off Olivia and Gabe. Turns out that if you give a pair of teenagers unrestricted internet access while they're in school, they use it. I informed them that I could see everything they looked at, and they started looking at really NSFW sites. So, no internet at all while in the hallowed halls of learning. Out-passive-aggress me, will you?

Oh, and you can't harness or use emotional spectrum light over the Internet. Trust me, I got mad at some moron on Tumblr, and all it did was damage the computer I bought to keep up appearances. And also to bait any sticky-fingered thieves.

There's Mr. Abbar, 43, walking his dog. As I walk past, I nod at him, he nods at me, I nod at the dog, she wags her tail. Single, seeking a good woman (must love Allah and dogs, but not necessary the 2005 romantic comedy Must Love Dogs), electrical engineer. EHarmony's algorithm is...struggling, and he's certainly not joining Tinder.

Finding a church was rather hard. Preferably Baptist, or Presbyterian. Heaven forfend, I'd even take Methodist, in a pinch. Luckily, I found a nice, non-denomination stompin' and clappin' black church, with sermons you can sleep through and everything. Just like Daddy used to make.

When I reach the top of the hill, I jog in place a little to build up momentum, and proceed down the steps. Good for the glutes. Or the superior vena cava. Or something else Latin-sounding.

Scott Adams once made a joke about how, if he had a computer in his head, he'd constantly opt-out of boring conversations. In one Star Trek book, Data engages a flirting subroutine while he considers the case he and Tasha Yar are investigating. And I am now a geek with unlimited access to Wikipedia and TVTropes and Reddit and Tumblr.

I have not gotten much done.

At the bottom of the steps, I walk forward and lean on the wall, watching my heart rate come back down.

Just call me Taylor Hebert.

Eventually, I stop feeling like death warmed over, and my legs regain function, and I start back up the steps.

Time to go to the hospital.

-/-

"Wake up, Colossus," Liv's voice says in my head.

I wake up. "That's the X-Men," I say, as my body continues to read the news to the coma patient.

"I meant the big Greek statue."

"Good, because I don't have a tracksuit."

"What?"

"I'm not Russian."

"That's racist."

Hospitals are a great place to pick up fear and hope, which I change to will, because it's supposedly the easiest to work with.

And yet, I haven't made a single actual construct. Of any color. Phenominal cosmic power my rear.

As cover, I've faked the paper trail for an organization that reads to comatose people. I let my ring run that, devote a macro to emotion collection, and nap.

There's probably some thematic parallel I could draw there.

"Whatcha doin'?" Liv asks me.

"Sitting in a chair, wearing a shirt that says 'A & B & C & D'. Et tu?"

"Getting ready to go to the movies. Are you planning to do anything besides going to the hospital, lying in a bed and surfing the Internet?"

"I eat, sleep, and poop sometimes."

"Yeah, you're a regular Kardashian. For someone with a power ring, you don't seem to be getting much actual use out of it."

"Hey, it makes an excellent web host. My clients are very thankful."

"Were you like this at home?"

Something in my chest twinges. Probably gas.

"Pretty much." I look out the window. "Work, home, church, the occasional movie. Sunrise, sunset."

"Has he hacked into anyone else's Tumblr account?"

"Who's 'he'?"

Primary user has compromised the account of one Chunky Underscore Funky, who attempted to end a debate with Floyd by use of the Ignore function. If Tumblr's staff investigate, they will find that Chunky Underscore Funky's Ignore list was accidentally purged by a glitch.

"They're going to catch on eventually."

"Not if I make sockpuppets."

"Nooot my point. Don't you have anything better to do with the ring?"

"What do you expect me to do?" I retort. "I don't have any training, I don't know who to go to for training, I don't have a team-"

"You've got me," Liv says, in a quiet, soft sort of voice.

I don't even remember activating Overclock.

So, most of the main cast in this setting had Daddy Issues. Olivia was adopted by a black couple, and strove to prove herself. Gabe and his sis had lost their dad when they were little, and Gabe's godfather and primary male influence for several years was Mr. Aldrin.

In the Novel, Gabe's sister would aggressively flirt with the self-insert, until they broke up under irreconcilable differences vis-a-vis when and exactly how hard she was going to jump his bones, and he'd get a new GF in the third book.

Probably piss off tumblr somethin' fierce.

Anyway, Gabe and Olivia would also both find Saul attractive, but would never do anything about it. Well, Gabe because he knew Saul was straight, and

And now I, a man in his late 20s, had to deal with what was quite possibly a teenage girl hitting on an older version of the guy she liked in canon.

"Um," I say. "Um."

I have to give her credit, she managed to keep a straight voice for a fair amount of time before bursting into laughter.

"Very funny," I growl. I don't like being made the butt of a joke. Not. One. Bit.

In retrospect, her voice hadn't carried overtones or undertones of desire or love. I can't believe I fell for it.

"Are you still calling her 'Ring'?"

"One, who says she's a she? Two, what else would I call her?"

"I dunno. Starr?"

"One, that's Power Girl's last name. For another, that way lies madness, especially if I'm actually talking about space. And Starr Ring sounds like a porn star name."

"Okay, okay. How about Sadoko?"

"Isn't that the name of the little girl from 'the Ring'?"

"Maybe."

"Ring, do you like the name Sadie?"
(joy)
Designation acceptable.

"She said-"

"I heard. Why does she talk in audio samples?"

Does user have a preference?

"Well, can you just-"

Does primary user have a preference?

"No, I'm fine with the Bumblebee impression."

"Did your magic space ring just sass me?"

"If she did, I'm very proud of her."
(joy)
"Think about what I said, Floyd. Talk to your pastor or something. I hear the DMA gives free therapy."

"But I don't have mommy issues."

She pointedly silenced at me before ending the call.

"Hello," someone says to my body, which, realistically, jumps as I shut down the autopilot.

"Sorry to scare you. I'm Nurse Reyes."

She sure is smiling broadly. I'm getting anger and some caution.

"I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're here."

"Thanks...?"

"You know, it's a funny thing about statistics," she says, apropos of nothing. "The hospital has several algorithms running to detect any deviations from the median, or mean. And we track the movements of visitors to the hospital."

What was she on ab-

Reyes' computer usage indicates that the algorithm has noted an improvement in the condition of comatose patients in areas where you were present.

Oh.

"Now," she continued. "If I had evidence that some super-powered individual was conducting unauthorized medical procedures on non-consenting patients, I'd be obliged to report it, and that individual might go to jail for a very long time. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the system, and the take for several completely random comatose patients over the past week or so has been lost."

"What a shame," says some robot using my voice, as the book I had been "reading" falls to the floor.

She nods. "I know, and you might want to tell the Morpheus Foundation that they need to increase their SEO."

Search Engine Optimization?

"I couldn't find your website at all."

"I'll...I'll send a memo."

She pats me on the shoulder, and leaves, and I collapse back into my seat.

Your heart rate is elevated.

Thank you, Captain Horatio Obvious.
(hurt)
"Exchange to fort."

"Liv? What is that noise?"

"We're in my mom's car," Gabe said. "Her best friend got her a CD of French accordion music-"

"Personally, I'd say that makes her more of a frenemy," Liv snarked.

"-And I wanted to give it a fair shake."

"Also, you got a call from the DMA," Liv said.

"What? Huh. Why?"

"Maybe because you put my house as your phone number?"

"Whoops."

"They said something about escorting a dignitary."

"From where? Sweden? Tibet? Canada?"

"A little farther than that."

-/-

Care and handling instructions for your alien-not-exactly-a-princess, but-sure-let's-go-with-that; Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate.

DMA had State breathing down their neck on this, and for some reason, they entrusted it to a complete unknown. Maybe their logic was "he has a space magic ring, she's a an anthropormorphized energy flux alien, they'll get on like a house on fire!"

And, y'know, possibly set houses on fire.

Still, she had diplomatic immunity, I didn't. In preparation, I had bought a nice casual outfit, and stored a go-bag in a locker at the bus station. I wanted to look less "bodyguard" and more "pop-star's boyfriend", and had been assured that her bodyguards would take care of the heavy lifting, with me as the backup. Said gentlemen were currently glaring at me.

They looked like someone had poured them out of a mold set to "black bodyguard" and "white bodyguard". Black tie, black shades, black shoes, and a black attitude, as the poet William Smith of West Philidelphia (born and raised) did say.

The fussy little DMA functionary seems agitated. I can't imagine why.

The dual doors in front of us open, and out sweeps a a perfectly ordinary woman.

Well, not normal normal. By no stretch of the imagination is she normal. This is not a woman you could pass in the street without swerving into a lamppost. I'd say she was built like a swimsuit model, except those tend to be more...top heavy, and she's more, ahem, evenly distributed, despite being tall. Her hair is long and a reddish-brown, her clothes are tasteful and stylish and expensive-looking, her skin is non-specifically light brown, a few shades lighter than my own, and her eyes are Afghan Girl-green.

"Floyd Clapton," I say, entirely on autopilot, and stick my hand out to shake. She takes it.

"Floyd Clapton," she says in a crisp upper-class British accent, tasting the word, rolling it around on her tongue. "Perhaps it's a just coincidence that your ring bears some similarity to a prism, which was famously featured on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' cover. And that there's a famous rock musician named Eric Clapton."

A sunny smile. "Perhaps not."

You know that moment in Doctor Who when Rose shows the psychic paper to the random Torchwood guy, and he goes "this paper is blank"? I kinda know what she felt like now.

"Um," I say.

Phat Princess shifts her hold to my arm, and has a surprisingly strong grip, and some part of my hindbrain goes a girl! A girl is touching me! A giiirl!"

Well, she's more of a woman, really. That's kind of hard to deny. Maybe it's the eyes. Maybe it's something else.

"How old are you?"

"Subjectively? Add 4, carry the 6-"

"Are you doing relativistic math in your head?"

"Yes. And you just distracted me."

A thought hits me like a blot of summer lightning. Long reddish hair, green eyes, rather shapely, alien space princess-

"Do you have a sister?"

She gives me a look that is certainly more than just friendly. Almost a smirk. Maybe even a leer. "Why? Am I not enough woman for you?"

Uh-oh.

If I am in a self-insert fic, I'd really like to ask myself why I'm going on a not-date with knockoff Starfire.

-PR-

The accordion CD is real. Except it's my mum, and I hear it every time I ride with her. Weep for me.