"Beginnings are such delicate times."
—PRINCESS IRULAN
The hour before dawn possessed a hush that Brockton Bay seldom granted—a stillness broken only by the faint whirr of a desktop fan and the soft, rhythmic clicks of a mouse. In that dim glow Paul sat erect, eyes tracking the march of text across an aging flatscreen. The desk lay bare except for keyboard, notebook, and a mug half‑filled with lukewarm water. Each object existed where his will decreed, ordered along invisible lines of function and priority.
Information pooled before him:—an executive summary of the Helsinki Accords on Extra‑National Capes; an archived dissertation on power‑trigger demographics; a Senate subcommittee hearing in which the word Endbringer rode every sentence like a silent gravity. He fed these fragments to the fragile mentat engine of an adolescent brain, coaxing sluggish synapses toward the cadence of disciplined thought. Context, he reminded himself. Always context. In a universe ruled by parahumans, law was the sand that shifted beneath power's weight; only by mapping the dunes might one glimpse the pattern of inevitable storms.
It was 04:37 when the computer finally coughed up the last page of the research papers—two decades of diplomatic throat‑clearing that boiled down to 'don't bomb each other's capes unless you want the Simurgh to finish the job for you'. Paul scrolled, absorbing every line, forcing sluggish neurons into something approaching Mentat cadence.
Mouse‑click. Page‑save. Next file.
He was nearly through the 2007 addendum on exile provisions when the door creaked. No warning knock, just hinges complaining, then Martha's head poking in.
"Greg?" Her voice was careful, like she was expecting to catch him drooling on a pillow. "Up already?"
Paul swivelled, letting the screen's bluish glow fall away from his face. "Good morning, mom," he said, voice calm, each syllable measured to deflect curiosity.
Her gaze roamed over the disciplined geometry of the room: the bed made with hospital precision, cables coiled, trash bin empty. Surprise flared, softened into maternal approval. "Morning, Greg. Come downstairs when you're ready. Breakfast is almost done."
Paul nodded. "I'll be down shortly."
She lingered, as though hoping clutter might spring from hiding, then nodded and withdrew. The door clicked shut. Silence returned, and Paul turned back to the computer.
He allowed himself five additional minutes with the screen—long enough to finish a paragraph on Jus Gentium Triggeri, the International Custom on Cross‑Border Trigger Events. It was an obscure clause, half Greek, half bureaucrat, and entirely fascinating. Under it, a state could claim jurisdiction over any newborn parahuman who first manifested on its soil, regardless of citizenship. A modern droit du seigneur, he mused—power reasserting ancient privileges beneath democratic paint.
He saved the file, shut down the computer, and felt rather than heard the house's diurnal pulse gathering: pipes knocking, kettle hissing, the low murmur of voices conversing about something Paul couldn't decipher.
Downstairs, morning unfolded in the clatter of dishes and drifting aroma of coffee. John Veder sat at the table, scrolling headlines from a phone that bounced blue reflections against his spectacles. Without looking up he replied to Martha's gentle sotto‑voce about insurance forms and a squeaking dryer belt. He barely looked up when Greg entered—hair combed, backpack slung, outwardly unremarkable but for the tranquility that trailed him like an unfamiliar scent.
"Morning, Dad."
John grunted a reply, eyes still on the feed. Martha slid a plate—eggs, toast neatly quartered—into place. "Eat up before it gets cold."
Paul obeyed with deliberate pace, tasting rather than devouring, cataloguing textures and caloric value. Martha's gaze kept returning, searching for the fidget, the flood of trivia that used to spill from her younger son. She found only still water.
"Head feeling better?" she ventured at last. "You looked awful yesterday."
"I am better," Paul assured her. "The pain is gone."
John finally raised his eyes, brow knitting at the orderly breakfast, the composed boy. Change can be unsettling, Paul noted behind Greg's placid mask. It is better then to ease them into it as early as possible. Tom arrived then, muttered a monosyllabic hey, before folding into his chair with a novel in hand. His stare brushed Greg—querying, wary—and moved on.
Conversation dwindled to utensil sounds. When his plate was bare, Greg rose. "Thanks, Mom. Gotta go."
Martha reached to ruffle his hair—hesitated at the unfamiliar poise—then settled for a soft pat to the shoulder. John murmured something about curfews. Tom ignored him as he departed.
✥✥✥
Outside, Brockton Bay breathed fog from its estuaries, exhaling through sewer grates and cracked asphalt. Buses groaned along their predawn routes; gulls announced territorial claims to overflowing dumpsters. Paul walked rather than waited, measuring the city block by block. As he arrived at his stop, he opened the mental ledger of this morning's data harvest and began computing.
Soon, a pattern emerged. It spoke only one message: Weakness invites correction. To navigate such a world as this he would require agency—physical, economic, political. A personal power. The only problem now was that all the paths ahead appeared murky. Uncertain. Paul didn't like it.
Soon, the bus arrived, and he boarded it, the early morning chatter washing around him unnoticed. Arriving at his destination, he filed into Winslow's corridors ghost‑quiet, notebooks balanced in steady hands. Classes slid past like beads on a string: mathematics (trivial), world issues (hobbled by a syllabus fearful of controversy), literature (Shelley again, the irony apt).
Paul went through the day, eyes half‑lidded, continually running internal calculations: risk assessments, possible contingencies, the probability curve of a derailing upheaval that might affect his plans. Numbers say weeks, not months. He didn't like it.
The resident punching bag, Taylor Hebert, was absent. Deprived of their favored prey, Madison's orbitals sought novelty. Julia's stare burned with yesterday's humiliation—an adolescent's wounded court politics. He registered it, assigned probability to ensuing confrontation, and dismissed reactive annoyance. Annoyance wasted synaptic cycles.
✥✥✥
The consequences of this dismissal surfaced during third period, when he ducked into the boys' restroom. Shoes scuffed tile behind him; voices dimmed as the other occupants scattered. He faced the mirror and watched the taller reflection arrive.
Oscar—football physique, E88 armband half hidden beneath the jacket sleeve. Earbud in one ear, boredom curled on his lip.
"Are you Veder?" the youth asked, fingers knotting in Paul's collar. "Julia says you need etiquette lessons. Come, we're taking a walk."
In the instant of contact, Paul tasted the boy's intent: mild irritation spiced with performative menace, a favor done in hope of later reward. Not hate, then—merely commerce. For a moment, he considers the wisdom in allowing things to play out. But then he remembered Taylor. They will never be content, these bullies. Give them an inch and they would take a mile.
Paul sighed as he realised what must be done. "Walk away, and you keep your dignity," he said in a final attempt at diplomacy. "I assure you, you don't want to do this."
The boy's brow creased—too slow to parse the vocabulary, quicker to tighten his fist. "Shut up, freak," he spat. The clenched fist drew back.
In that narrowing instant, Paul calculated angles, weight, the ratio of reach to leverage. True, his new shell was incomparable to his original body, but the fact remained that Paul was a Fremen with Bene Gesserit training; muscle memory could, to some extent, be overwritten by will alone. As Oscar reared for the demonstration punch, Paul pivoted. One forearm deflected, other hand found carotid. Torque, drop of center of gravity—sinew sang its reluctant obedience.
They collapsed together, predator turned prey in a silent tangle. Paul's elbow pinned trachea just shy of collapse; his free hand muffled sound. Oscar's eyes bulged, limbs flailed briskly, then stilled in the calculus of pain.
"Walk away, Oscar," he repeated, his voice a whisper against ear and panic. "You don't want this." Tears glittered at the edge of the bully's eyes. A nod—jerky, desperate. Squeezed breath rasped agreement. Paul released, stepped back. The athlete sagged and curled away on his knees, clutching reddened throat.
Satisfied, Paul straightened his shirt. He regarded the MP3 device clipped at the boy's waist—a totem of status as much as music. "The music player," he said. "Give it."
Oscar looked up, confused. "Oh, you thought you could just bother me and walk away unscathed?" Paul clarified, his face forming a sneer. "Give it before I break your toes."
Oscar whimpered. Plastic changed hands.
In the hallway outside, Julia waited with her friends, expectation curdling into disbelief as he passed untouched. Paul ignored them. As he made way back to the classroom, he slipped the earbuds in, clipped the music player onto his chest pocket where it would be visible, and scrolled until a neutral rhythm emerged—no hate lyrics, no white‑supremacist garbage, no discordant rock. Just some old westerns.
He liked it.
✥✥✥
The next minutes were peaceful. Classes drifted past like low clouds—useful only for barometric hints of the culture he must navigate. When the final bell released its captives, Paul diverted from routine, boarding a city bus north toward Lord Street Market rather than heading straight home.
Here, rust yielded to crammed stalls and neon, the smell of frying meat, incense, cheap electronics off‑gassing plastic dreams. At a pharmacy, he exchanged the entirety of Greg's hoarded savings for whey, creatine, protein isolate, omega‑rich oils, magnesium tablets and vitamins dense with iron and B‑complex.
Pockets lighter, he crossed the street to a squat building whose cartoonish sign declared Fugly Bob's Burgers—Home of the Challenger! Calories, he calculated. Inside, booths clattered with late afternoon chatter. A waitress in bright polyester approached. Paul gave his order.
"The Challenger?" Her brows arched. "You know it's free only if you finish?"
"I know," he said calmly.
She studied him: slight, pale, too calm. "All right, champ. Your funeral." She tore the ticket, and disappeared into the kitchen.