A Normil Day

Armand Cole

Any American youth in the original universe would have a wild but surprisingly accurate guess as to why a shy and bespectacled reporter was last seen hurrying toward the roof even though he'd previously given everyone the strong impression that he was afraid of heights.

It doesn't seem to work the same way in the new universe. I don't know if that's because this world has different stories, fewer clues to that sort of thing, or something else. A force, a subtle trick of probability, which channels events into a specific pattern and rhythm. Think of it as the thing that makes the older, crueler princes fail while the humble third son succeeds. Call it the Narrative.

And always remember—the Narrative doesn't guarantee victory, and it certainly doesn't guarantee you'll live to see it. Even if you really are the hero of the story, and not just a bystander or a bit part. Tragedies are narratives too.

Shortly after Michael Wells arrived in the newsroom, he had a phone conversation with Jenna. She described Rick's condition, including the fact that he didn't sound at all like Rick to her, and went on to speculate about Adam Stitch's rampage. She requested that Michael call the Extraordinary Security Prison, the Tank, and find out if they'd had any little insignificant anomalies. Cameras cutting out for two minutes but not to worry, everything's fine now. An escapee with no way to get off the island, the public is perfectly safe. That sort of thing.

Michael didn't make the call. He made a hasty, vague excuse about Jenna having a good hunch, and fled. Rick Normil was the last person to see him that day.

Less than five minutes later, on an island in Lake Huron (a tiny, ominous dot, if you're looking from the Bayside Tower in Marina City) the superhero called Guardian landed for a talk with the warden.

As it happened, the anomaly was neither little nor insignificant. It was about the size and shape of a lunchbox, a strangetech device made from old cell phone parts, and it induced paranoia in everyone within a two hundred yard radius. It had been planted right outside Adam Stitch's cell by a guard who later claimed to have been controlled by aliens. Conditions in the prison were close to riot, with the guards taken as badly as the prisoners, on the edge of utter brutality. It was a testament to Warden Talbot's sheer stolid, humorless competence that he managed to hold things together until the batteries ran down. Adam Stitch had been deliberately triggered.

But that's not the only significant point. The really, truly significant point is that you still don't understand what Guardian's appearance has to do with Michael Wells's disappearance. Do you?

The Narrative. Watch out for it. It gets inside your head.