The Law of Averages

Chapter 5

"You teleported all the way back to Earth!?" Doctor Mercury demanded loudly, looking off-balance for the first time since Dan had met him.

"Not my Earth," Dan corrected.

"NOT THE POINT!" Mercury shouted in Dan's face, spittle flying forth to coat his cheeks.

Dan wiped his face on his sleeve. "Then what is the point? I tried to go home, I failed, big whoop."

"The point is that we have no idea how your power works, you imbecile," the doctor snarled, his face an angry red. "Maybe you have a limited distance per jump, and you end up in empty space! Maybe you have a limited amount of jumps per day, and you end up in empty space on your way back! Maybe you can't account for the environment and you end up inside of a wall! Maybe you can only jump in straight lines and you miss your mark! So many things could've gone wrong!"

Dan blinked innocently. "Ah. Woops?"

Doctor Mercury went from red to puce, his expression twisting into something murderous, before storming out of the room. The tray of food he'd brought in clattered against the counter as he shoved past it.

Dan shrugged helplessly, grabbed for the tray, and began to eat.

He'd mostly made peace with his situation in the two hours or so he'd had to himself, since returning from his ill-fated jaunt to Earth. Perhaps peace was too light a word. He had made a brief ceasefire with his situation, the terms of which were simple. The world would stop trying to give him a panic attack, and he would, in turn, stop blubbering like a baby.

Things were fine. So he couldn't teleport back home, so what? He had other options he could explore. He'd make a list later, and simply work his way down. Home wasn't going anywhere. There was no need to panic.

Dan's fork scraped the bottom of the tray. He'd finished the meager rations that Mercury had brought him. A tasteless brown sludge that somehow managed to fill his stomach. Dan sighed, setting the tray aside. He should probably find Doctor Mercury and apologize. For what, he had no idea. He was the one who was in danger, after all. Regardless, Dan had years of experience groveling; he'd find a way to make his words sound truthful.

The door whooshed open, and Mercury stomped back inside. Dan pasted a sincere expression on his face and opened his mouth, his brain quickly cobbling together vague concessions.

"Doctor, I am truly s—"

"Can it," the old man snapped. His left hand shot forward, gripped around the top of a small animal cage. About half the size of a cat carrier, it appeared to be made of normal, boring plastic. He shook it in Dan's face. "Me and you are going to run some experiments, right now."

"Um," Dan began.

The doctor's free hand gripped around Dan's collar and dragged him to his feet. For an old fellow, he was surprisingly strong.

"Now!" Mercury bellowed.

"Okay okay!" Dan straightened his clothing and himself, and cautiously followed the wizened little man out the door. The pair traveled down the winding hallway, passing half a dozen locked doors along on the way. Neptune hovered in the window, a constant reminder of Dan's situation.

They walked for several minutes. Dan wasn't sure about the exact size of the station, nor was he willing to ask questions while Mercury was in such a prickly mood, but it seemed obscenely large for a single person. The doctor had mentioned having some sort of grant during his earlier rant, perhaps the station was meant to support more people but there simply were not any other candidates? Curiosity eventually conquered restraint, and he voiced his question to Doctor Mercury.

"The station is mine," the doctor replied sourly, his brisk pace not slowing in the slightest. "I got it on the cheap because it has a bit of an upleasant history. Built by terrorists and all that, you know how it is."

Dan really didn't, but was hesitant to actually say so. Judging by the deep frown on the doctor's face, this was dangerous territory. He decided to pivot the conversation a bit.

"So... Spackle," Dan proffered. He really didn't know how to broach such an odd topic.

"What about her?" Mercury grunted.

"She's, uh, a she? The ship, that is?" Dan's stuttering won him a flithy glare from his companion.

"Er, the ship that brought me here: she's named Spackle, and she's sentient?" Dan clarified.

The old man sighed. "Indeed. The only alien I've ever discovered and it's a skittish, idiotic, mute, orphaned serial-kidnapper."

Dan frowned. That wasn't promising.

"I was hoping to have a conversation with her," he ventured.

"What is it you think I mean when I say mute?," Doctor Mercury asked, irritation obvious in his tone.

"That she doesn't have a mouth?" Dan offered. "She's a ship, so that seems somewhat self-evident."

Mercury shook his head. "She doesn't speak. She just, well, flashes her lights at you."

"But her console has an intercom on it. I heard you through it. She can't use that? Or, I don't know, can't you plug in a computer and have her type through that?" Dan questioned, sifting through his mental science fiction archive for ideas. If it could be done in Independence Day, surely it could be done here.

A separate thought occurred to him. "Don't you have a universal translator?

The doctor clicked his tongue. "My translator only works on spoken languages, and she's never stuck around long enough for me to modify it to suit her. Besides, I said doesn't speak, not can't speak. For all I know, she thinks playing mute is funny. She's barely made any effort to communicate with me. Not since I agreed to berth her, at least."

Dan's newfound optimism sunk a tad. "Well... I'd like to give it a shot anyway. She might be my ticket home."

Doctor Mercury shrugged. "I doubt it. She left an hour ago."

And there it went, the S.S. Hope completely capsized, sploosh right into the drink. Where was his heroic speech scene? How could he guilt trip the stupid ship if it flew off before he could try!?

Mercury ignored Dan's slumping shoulders, instead stopping in front of a door.

"We're here," he said. The entrance opened, and a gust of stale air hit Dan's face. The doctor motioned him in, and Dan obeyed out of sheer habit.

The room itself resembled the unholy offspring of a high school gym and a science lab. Shiny hardwood floor covered an area about the size of a basketball court. Exercise equipment lay scattered about the floor, in varying levels of disrepair. The outer borders of the square room housed several lab tables, filled with microscopes and glass beakers and other fragile, probably expensive objects that Dan couldn't identify. From the tall ceiling hung two pairs of high bay LEDs that had snapped on the instant Dan entered the room.

"Welcome to my old training facility and current storage room," Mercury said, shoving past Dan and walking towards one of the cleaner lab tables. "Stop gawking and follow me."

Dan shuffled after him obediently, still a bit lost as to what they were actually doing here.

Doctor Mercury hefted the cage that he'd been carrying and dropped it on the table. The front of it was opaque, but a few quick motions from the doctor had it opened. Dan internally braced himself for some sort of animal abomination.

A fuzzy white mouse hopped out of the box, sniffing cautiously at the air. It was... adorable. It could fit in the palm of his hand, with bright white fur and little pink limbs and big, shiny, soulful eyes. Dan was struck with the certainty that Doctor Mercury was going to somehow kill it.

"This little guy is one of my test subjects," the mad scientist explained. "I've been bombarding her and her siblings with cosmic radiation in my spare time, to see if I can give them specific powers. Since she has yet to manifest any powers of his own, she can help us experiment with yours."

"...Why do we need a mouse?" Dan asked, dreading the answer.

"We have to test if you can teleport living things of course!" Mercury replied with a pleased smile. "I'm certainly not going to volunteer. Teleportation has a nasty habit of turning things inside out. Better to use something disposable."

The old man bent down, gently stroking a finger down the mouse's spine.

"Who's disposable? You are!" he cooed, as the tiny creature rubbed against his hand.

Dan carefully did not cringe. It seemed that he needed a more cynical imagination.

Mercury wasn't going to kill the mouse, he'd make Dan do it for him.