INTERLUDE - THE SEER - PART ONE

She was nervous.

She had no reason to be. Not right now, sitting in a nice apartment in the Outer City, surrounded by friends and bodyguards. Her gang. Her people. She was as safe as could be.

Nothing could stop them. Nothing would. She'd checked twice.

"Cassy, are you ready?" Jack asked.

Glancing up, she took in the man standing just a few steps away. Jack was wearing a longer coat, with a balaclava rolled up so that it wasn't covering his face. "It's not a question of whether or not I'm ready," she said. "It's all on you."

He grinned. "No pressure then, huh?" he asked before leaning down and pressing a hand onto her head. "We'll get them back. Don't worry."

She nodded, then reached down to touch the wheels on her chair.

She almost didn't need it anymore. Just a few more years, then she'd be at rank C, and then it would all be better. She'd be better. Her friends wouldn't be able to make anymore 'Professor X' jokes, and she'd be able to run and dance. She missed dancing.

What a silly thing to miss. She shook her head and glanced at her wrist. Her watch--a gift from one of the guys she was going to save today--read 3:49.

Good, they were getting closer. Soon her mistake would be fixed.

It was her plan that had gone wrong. It was her power that had lied.

Her goal was distant, but it was important. So she broke it down into small steps. Things then needed to be done. Sometimes she didn't quite understand them, and often she worried that she was a slave to fate, but more often than not they all worked out.

Why did they need to kidnap the daughter of a CEO? Because it reduced the chance of The Event happening by 17%. That was one of the biggest drops. Or it should have been. Now The Event was still 89% likely to happen.

The plan had been relatively simple, though not cheap. But money... well, she had ways of helping her friends make more of that. They couldn't play the stock market (70% chance they'd be caught within half a year) but there were other markets that weren't watched as much. Getting the right things to the right people at the right time could make those people very happy, and happy people didn't mind trading in favours and money.

Anyway, things had been going well. For almost three months she'd been working herself to exhaustion finding the exact route, the exact actions, needed to lower the chance that The Event would happen.

Then things went weird.

She'd been sleeping on it, not checking her results again, because they'd always, always, remained steady. If there was a 100% chance of something happening in one month from today, then unless she acted on it, it would happen in a month.

Until the odds started to shift.

Something was interfering with her.

She knew better now. It wasn't even from one source. There were many small things that could twist the odds. Pushing against any of the bigger corps was always bad. They had their own pre-cogs and clairvoyants, she suspected, or people with precognitive and anti-precognitive spells at least. The government was worse.

Her power might interfere with theirs. Theirs interfered with hers. It made her extremely paranoid.

Now she had a new routine every morning and evening. What are the odds that I'll die in the next 24 hours. What are the odds that my friends will die in the next 24 hours? What are the odds that someone who considers me an enemy will discover me in the next 24 hours?

If the odds were low enough, she'd relax... a little.

The second day of the kidnapping had been a wake-up call. Her friends should have been safe. And suddenly they weren't. They were in jail, captured, questioned, paraded on TV as evil gangsters.

She didn't have powers that let her see into the past. She had no idea what went wrong or how.

Now her paranoia was at an all-time high.

She glanced at the time. Almost four. Likelihood that plan Hoodwink will be a success? She asked herself.

Her core twisted, magic was sapped out of her, and she grimaced. Still, she had to endure it. The magic coalesced, and eventually she had an answer, 97%.

That was good. Very good.

The room she was in had walls lined by fold-out tables and whiteboards and even the ceiling wasn't spared, with hooks drilled into it so that they could have posters and maps hanging above. It was a mess, yes, but it was everything she needed for this plan to work.

The trucks, modified to increase the odds, stolen from people that wouldn't notice until tomorrow. The vans, stolen as well. The masks, outfits, guns. Everything had been gathered in a hurry, then she'd test it. If they went with A instead of B, what were the odds? Over and over.

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A few times, the odds changed and she couldn't tell why. It was small things, though, minor changes.

She was beginning to suspect that she couldn't rely on longer term plans. Week-long kidnapping attempts bumped into too many others using magic similar to hers.

She worked her jaw as she rolled to the centre of the room, then she gestured to a radio that someone brought closer. It had a microphone and all. She'd be able to keep in touch.

Time ticked on, unstoppable, continuous as ever. She wanted to tap her feet with impatience, but nothing was happening. So she leaned her head back and thought, allowed herself to be happy, to be positive.

That was what empowered her magic. Optimism. The meeting point between Joy and Anticipation. It was something she'd always had, but there was a moment, one crystal moment of clarity just a month or two ago, where she received a diagnosis that would be the end of her.

She should have been finished with that. It should have been her end.

But... no. Her friends, her family, had gathered around her, had promised her the world. Wild plans of assaulting corpo, of stealing someone's cyberlegs, of making the world at least remember her.

She'd laughed, she'd cried, she'd had the best night in her life, and through it all, she felt her chest constrict. It was hope.

Stupid, pointless hope, but she clutched onto it.

And then she awakened. Ascended.

If there was ever a reason for optimism, it was seeing hope fulfilled, of seeing the light brighten after a long night, of finding a friend in deed in a time of need.

Now she was grabbing onto that as hard as she could. She would free her friends. They would save their world.

Four forty rolled around. Jack sent her a text.

She picked up the microphone, clicked it on. Chances that the operation will succeed? 98%. Chances that the team will be successfully followed? 12%.

Two questions that almost bottomed her magical reserves. Her free hand fumbled for the bag stuck to the side of her chair. "O-operation is a go," she said.

They started, and she was left here watching the news and listening to the public radio. She hand found what she was looking for, and she brought it up. A juice pack. Expensive. Meant for D-rankers only, and while their group had a few, they weren't the official sort, with the paper trails and such to be able to buy what they wanted.

She opened the pack and drank, feeling the magic course through her even as her nervous tension grew.

But she believed in her friends.

And it was worth it. Five PM, then five twenty... then five thirty. Only a few messages sent back. For all that her power was good, there was no reason to stretch it. OP-Sec made the odds so much better.

She knew when they arrived when there was a loud holler from downstairs.

Laughing, she rolled out of the room in a hurry, then paused by the elevator, impatiently tapping the button for it. When it opened though, she was able to greet her friends who'd ridden up to see her.

"Cassy!"

"Hi!" she replied. Then she was being hugged and giving out hugs and holding in some tears. The last week had been a lot, she'd pushed herself to her limit and well past it, but it was good now, things were safe.

The crew changed out of their prison clothes, drinks were brought out, the air took on a fun, festive feel to it. Happiest of all was Mary, who as a D-ranker herself--and an Fire mage at that--she knew that they wouldn't be keeping her in jail for long. It was either forced labour or death, and she didn't like either idea.

The party went on for a while, but eventually the question came up. What went wrong?

It was Mary that answered. She'd seen the most of their enemy. "This... this bitch. Tall, dark, had a mask and a fuck-huge gun. Popped the portal with that Ojou chick with her, took me in a lock and then slammed some bullshit Void magic into me. Fuck! I'd like to see that hoe again. I'd burn a lesson into her, I swear."

Cassandra took note of that. They had enemies, it seemed. But tonight was a day for celebration, and so she enjoyed it while she could.

That night, late into the evening, when she was tucked into bed and on the verge of sleep, she ran through her questions.

What are the odds that I'll die in the next 24 hours. What are the odds that my friends will die in the next 24 hours?

She smiled. The results were all nice and low. Things were okay.

What are the odds that someone who considers me an enemy will discover me in the next 24 hours?

Cassandra gasped. 100%.

Someone would know, and soon.

***