Glitches in My Code

Numbers

I look in the mirror, glancing above my head, as usual, seeing the same number I always do. The ten hovers just above my hair, black against the pale walls. I'm a ten because I can see other people's Numbers. I'm deadly because I know exactly how deadly other people are. I've never seen someone else with anything higher than an eight. Even then, that was a special op soldier in a documentary. 

Armies are fascinating to me, simply because of the range. I've seen everything from a two to an eight, though most are on the lower part of that range. I can almost always tell when someone's lived a rough life, or served in the military, or served in prison, besides the normal clues. They tend to have higher Numbers and carry themselves accordingly. I tend to laugh when people tell me that they're deadly since most of the time they're dead wrong. Most average people hover around a one or two, with the occasional three.

One of the funny things about my Sight is that I can see how deadly people are in photographs and videos. The only problem is that I'm constantly reminded of the characters being actors. Seeing someone who's about to blow up a planet have a one tends to take the fun out of it. I've learned to guess what somebody is before actually checking when I'm bored, like a little game I play with myself, but I'm not that good at it. I like trying to look for the little things that show why somebody is more deadly than they look, like how a lot of ex-soldiers sit with their backs straight as a pole, feet forward and have slightly more wrinkles than they look like they should have, as though the military had aged them immensely. 

I leave my house, still pondering the different ways to guess someone's rating, and I almost run into somebody the minute I get onto the sidewalk, heading for the bus stop. I look upwards, apologies already falling from my lips like a waterfall. I've always been short, and this guy is annoyingly tall. He seems to accept my apology, though he says nothing in return.

I rush the rest of the way to the bus stop and get there just as my bus pulls up, my head still ducked after the run-in with the man on the sidewalk. I hop on the bus, looking up so I can get a seat if possible and finding one. I flop down in a window seat, thankful that nobody sits beside me. The bus meanders back onto the road, gaining speed bit by bit as it makes its way through the city, stopping every few minutes to let someone on or off.

As I stare out the window, my thoughts wander back to the encounter with the man. I think back to his face, remembering odd details that I knew I normally wouldn't be able to point out with some of my closest friends, much less a complete stranger, like a minuscule scar crossing the outermost corner of his lip, or the almost asterism-like moles under his chin, five arranged like the points of a star, stark against his skin. I think back to the one thing that doesn't jump to the forefront of my memory, struggling to remember. His Number. It creeps slowly to the forefront of my mind, and I can see it in the shadows, though it refuses to come into the light of memory, like a child that knows it's in trouble and wants to delay the inevitable. With a final bit of coaxing, it steps into the light, and I know why my mind wanted me to forget.

He's a ten too.