CHAPTER EIGHTY - FORESIGHT

I gasped, then almost fell off my bike at the sudden motion, but a quick leg on the ground stopped me from tripping over the side.

What the hell was that? He'd straight up shot me in the back. Who did that?

It... didn't make sense. They'd been firing around the police earlier. It would have been easy to nail a few of them, and yet that one asshole shot me, obviously a civilian, right in the back? What the fuck?

Glaring at nothing in particular, I waited for there to be a gap in the traffic ahead, then I rode out. While I did, I tried to recall what the place looked like. Maybe I could wait across the street instead? I wouldn't matter, I supposed.

I rode past the prison, because it was between where I was coming from and my objective, then I parked on the road not too far from where the alley was. At a glance, it was clear that they hadn't arrived yet. So... arrival time was a bit past five-ish PM.

Sitting back on my bike, I pulled out my phone and stared at it for a while, thinking. Should I change to my leotard? It was a little more armoured. Probably not enough to stop a round, but some was better than none.

I was still thinking about it when I saw two vans coming down the road, with a pair of SUVs behind them. Ah-hah! My pals were here.

And then one of the SUVs turned hard, cutting me off, and suddenly two guys were jumping out of it.

I leapt off my bike. There was no time to start it and move. No time to grab a weapon either, but I wasn't practicing martial arts so much for nothing. "Help! Fire! Rapists! Kidnapping!" I shouted as one of them ran for me. I ducked to the side, nailing him in the side of the face with a quick punch, but his arm wrapped around my chest and he started to pull me down.

I went feral for a moment, punching him as hard and fast as I could, even as I landed on my back. I got a good knee strike into his ribs, but the big fucker wasn't going down so easily.

Then his buddy showed up. "Help!" I screamed again.

He grabbed my free arm, so I leaned all the way back and kicked him in the face. The sight of blood was very satisfying until the first guy punched me hard in the ribs.

I felt something crack and the air coughed out of me. For a moment I was very dazed, and they managed to pull me up and throw me towards the waiting SUV. "Get her in, quick!" one of them shouted.

"Overwatch, is the plan scrap?" someone inside asked. "Yeah... understood. Tie her up. Cover her face, we'll toss her out in an alley."

I twisted, casting Soothe Minor Pain on myself, then Exhaust Senses on both of the idiots holding me, but that didn't seem to do too much to stop them from manhandling me.

Fuck.

I Reloaded.

So... what the fuck was that?

First, a sign that I needed to hit the gym a lot more. Maybe carry a sidearm around too. Where was that company-issue handgun? It was small enough to be an everyday carry.

I stood off my bike and pulled out my revolver and the holster for it in the meantime. That'd do it.

Shit, I did not like being handled like that. It felt violating. It was violating. Next time I saw those two fucks I'd shoot them.

I grumbled to myself as I got back on my bike then rode out.

This time, when I made it and stopped, I had a hand on my revolver. Something wasn't adding up, of course. Why had they stopped? The guy in the passenger seat had talked to overwatch? Their boss? A squad leader? Was this a bigger operation than I'd thought?

And why stop at all? I was a normal-ass civilian. I had every... okay, so I didn't have a license, but they didn't know that. As far as they were concerned though, I was a tax-paying citizen with every right to be on the road.

I waited.

I waited more.

The vans never showed up. I was sitting there, baking in the early evening sun until 6:30, and not one van appeared. I rode my motorcycle back to the jail and did a quick circuit of it. Nothing.

Okay...

Okay, no, that wasn't good. That was bad, actually. Very bad.

I started to breathe a little harder. Something had clearly gone very wrong. What did I do differently that cause that?

So far, my power was pretty consistent. Or rather, the world was. Some things that felt random would almost always be exactly the same, but less random stuff changed. A diceroll would rarely land on the same face after a save, even if I wasn't the one to throw it, but major events seemed to happen the same way.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It was possible, I supposed, that some minor random event happened between 4:30-ishPM and now. A bird shitting on the wrong windshield causing an accident leading to... something-something butterfly effect. I could believe that, but... no, this felt different.

I Reloaded, feeling insanely paranoid, then returned to the jail. This time I just went back and watched again.

Again, the semi came roaring around the corner, the bazooka came out... yeah, this was a repeat of last time.

I started to follow the vans, my bike a smidge faster than the police, and almost as soon as I did, I noticed one of the guys whipping out a phone.

Wait...

I Reloaded.

This time I went to the jail, revolver in hand, fully intending to shoot at the guys in the van when they showed up.

They didn't.

I Reloaded, got off my bike, and started to pace.

Could it be that simple? No, I wasn't that lucky, or that smart or observant. Only... it was possible, right? There were people with cool magical skills out there, so who was to say that someone didn't have a power that let them know when someone had ill-intent?

Now... how in the fuck would I even counter that? Just planning on shooting the vans up triggered it. Maybe. Hell, I wasn't sure.

But... I was at work.

I looked up to the Luna Corp building, shrugged, then ran over.

I caught Dharti and Terry on the way out of the offices, and they looked at me a little worried as I came to a stop before them. "Hey!" I said. "Is there magic that lets you know if someone wants to hurt you, and how do you counter it?"

"This is not the most

concerning thing you may have said on barging in here," Dharti began. "But it certainly ranks high."

"Did you piss off a current-cog?" Terry asked.

"A clairvoyant, dear," Dharti corrected. "Though I am also curious?"

I licked my lips, then looked between the two. "I'm secretly a time-traveller," I said.

Terry laughed.

Dharti didn't.

"Wait, seriously?" Terry asked.

"Yeah," I said. "And right now, I'm in a fight with... a clairvoyant, I guess. Look, whenever I try to act against them, they change their plans, and I don't want to loop through this day forever."

"Presuming for a moment that I chose to believe you," Dharti said. "There are standard operating procedures for combating clairvoyant enemies. Though they only appear in B-ranked portals and above."

"Okay," I said. "So what's the trick?"

"You don't fight them," Dharti said.

"That's a terrible trick," I said.

"It's called a 'Gate Down' tactic," Dharti continued. "The presumption is that defeating a clairvoyant is so difficult when facing them directly that you might as well not. If they're not the boss of a portal, then run past them. Distract, and move on. Whatever your primary objective is, that is what you focus on to the detriment of all else. Most clairvoyants are specialized in avoiding harm to themselves, and might not be ready for someone to ignore them entirely."

I blinked, then rubbed at the bridge of my nose. It sounded so obvious when put like that.

"If you must fight, then hinging the choice to attack or not on an outside, random factor, can sometimes paralyze the enemy. Usually a coin is spun, heads calls for a retreat, tails an attack. A clairvoyant that operates off of knowing your plan can't do so if you yourself don't know. Only that won't work against anything with a stronger ability."

The break-out team ignored me entirely as long as I wasn't planning on interfering. The moment I intended to attack, then they'd change plans.

Laying in ambush meant that they'd never pass or would cancel their operation, but just observing didn't.

Following them... seemed to also fuck with things, but not following didn't? Where was the line, there?"

"Thanks," I said before Reloading.

It was time to try something out. I'd revert to pure observation, and see where that got me. And then, if it worked out... maybe I could strike hard and fast enough that it wouldn't matter? Or... no... did I need an element of randomness to confuse things? Maybe I could get a bit of help from some friends?

Or... I could focus on my primary objective; find out who was responsible for all of this.

***