The Stuck Elevator Problem

[Adelaide McLisk]

There was only one other person in the elevator with Add. She'd barely given that person a passing look when she'd entered, and she didn't really see a point on focusing too much at the time. There were always probabilities surrounding people, little difficulties and special circumstances. Most people variables couldn't be determined without a good deal more information, and Add didn't intend on discovering that much about her momentary elevator companion. They'd have their short, few minute ride up from the bottom floor of the library to the third. Most people would have taken the stairs, even if they were holding a stack full of books. Add just liked elevators, even if they did have other people in them.

She didn't have a stack of books. She had three, which she'd gathered to quickly review before heading back to Greenview, possibly with the books. The library here was a little better than the library at the school, or, to be more accurate, they had what Add wanted in a library.

This elevator though, something felt... off about it. It shuddered for a moment, then ground shortly after. Add thought she heard her companion saying something, but she'd mostly ignored it. She'd mostly ignored her riding buddy the whole time, to be honest. The elevator ride should have been short enough after all. Elevators as a rule didn't fail.

Then the probabilities hit Add, and she nearly winced. "We're going to stop," she said, her head swiveling up to look at the roof of the elevator. Sure enough, it ground, wiggled, and then ceased moving. Add lowered her head, almost casually pressing the "help needed" button. Now she was stuck; but not just her, this other... person. Add looked over now, wondering if there was another problem to be solve just a few feet away.

[Terrence Mathews]

Today Terrence was being lazy. And he needed time to think for a moment, but he was being lazy. The last time he'd come to the library here, he'd gotten a nosebleed, so he wasn't going back to that row of books, not yet anyway. Seeing Kiara again was something that had rested in his thoughts, however. But, anyway, he was being lazy because he was taking the lift. Well, if he was going to be accident prone, he didn't want to fall up the stairs or knock someone over, which he was very conscious that he could do now. And once Terrence was conscious of something, it consumed his thoughts and actions.

There was only one other person in the lift with him, a girl. Or a woman. The library here was a lot bigger than Hammel's, and he liked being surrounded by multitudes of books. He was holding nothing yet, but he knew he most probably would be soon.

Terrence wasn't the type to be... friendly. Well, not straight away anyway. It wasn't like he hated other people or anything, he just... wasn't good at forming words when it came to talking to strangers. Someone had ask him once if he had a stutter as a medical condition, and that was awkward. He only stuttered and stammered and struggled when he was uncomfortable, which was a lot of the time. The mistake was understandable, but it didn't make him happy.

The noises confused Terrence, worried him. He made a kind of noise, possibly the beginning of a sentence, or some unanswerable question, but the words never came out. But, he heard the girl speak. They were gonna-?! The lift came to a halt. Curious, he looked at the girl as she pressed the button. "H-how," he stammered, his throat drying a little when he made eye contact, making him look away, at the roof, and the floor, and the door, anything else. Silently cursing his inability to speak to other people, he continued, "how did y-you know th-at?" Metas weren't anything new, I mean, he was one and worked at a school that taught them. How more related to the powered humans could you get?

If it turned out that she was meta, he would show her that he was too. Somehow.

[Adelaide McLisk]

How came out in a stutter. One percent of the adult population had a stutter, and Add knew this man to be, well, a man instead of a boy, so he fell quite nicely into that one percent. Strange that she'd wind up in an elevator with a one percent, but then again, you ran into those more often than you thought. She didn't immediately look at him, but their eyes ended up meeting. He moved first, and for another moment there, Add could almost see the various probabilities lining up. Question was probable, nerves were probable, given how he looked, acted... there weren't a lot of probabilities though, not enough to lock Add up.

She nodded. "I knew because of the odds," she said. She pointed at the elevator roof, "The roof shows signs of decay at a relatively intense rate. The whole elevator smells a little funny, and, well, the noises shot the probability into an eventuality; we were just the unlucky ones," she said. Truthfully, Add didn't believe in luck. Maybe she should have said "unfortunate ones," but then again, unfortunate meant lacking in fortune, which meant luck, so that was essentially the wrong thing.

Add realized that there had a brief pause and she looked at Terrence, shifting awkwardly for a moment. "That's my ability," she said, keeping her tone flat, "my meta gift: I can deduce probabilities at an enhanced rate," another pause, "I'm not a fortune teller and I don't have precognition. It's just... possibilities and math," she shrugged, then leaned against the elevator door. Most people weren't even the slightest bit interested in her ability; it was just... boring. It amounted to "can do math obscenely well." And if they ever were, they likely figured out what Add knew: that she could win at games of chance. That hadn't turned out well for her...

[Terrence Mathews]

Terrence didn't want to assume anything right now; he didn't want to assume that she was Meta, because she seemed pretty observant, from what she was saying. In the least, she was more observant than Terrence, who had only noticed the noises. Why would you know the normal smell of a lift anyway? It was pretty amazing, whatever it was. Terrence was impressed. "You'r-re like Sherlock, that's r-ridiculous!" Ridiculous in a good way, though.

Ah, so she was powered! And that wasn't something he'd heard of before... why did all the metas he had met at this library have something to do probability? The coincidence was uncanny. But she wasn't a probability manipulator, she was a probability... calculator? "That's an awe-some power to ha-ave." He smiled awkwardly, trying to be friendly and falling a little short. He stood stiffly, "I'm m-meta too." He really wanted to kill this stuttering problem soon, it made him sound so stupid!

Terrence caught sight of the book on the top of the stack she was carrying and luckily enough, he recognized it. He concentrated on the book and its appearance and summoned it into his hand. It wasn't like telekinesis in the sense that you didn't see it float or anything, but it just disappeared from her hands and appeared in his. Hopefully she didn't mind. He sent it back, "Sorry." He apologized, maybe he should've asked first.

[Adelaide McLisk]

"Sherlock?" said Add, frowning for a moment. She had a feeling that was a reference to something... "You mean like the character in the book?" that was admittedly a new one to her. She'd never really thought of herself as some kind of British super-sleuth before, but she supposed she could see why. Of course, most of her observations were meta-based, not out of any real skill, not like Sherlock at all. She was tempted to say exactly that, but something gave her pause; it didn't feel very... polite.

"It is indeed awesome. I inspire awe," agreed Add, her voice still flat, blinking at the man. "You don't need to be nervous; it's not like I can blow up your head with a thought," she said. She blinked again, then realized that perhaps she should make it clear that was a joke. She attempted a laugh. It was rather sad.

Then the book vanished. Add glanced down, math flooding her head for a few seconds. What were the chances... well, technically, anything could disappear at any time, given entropy, but this wasn't entropy, it was... something else. Add looked to her companion as he spoke, seeing that he held the book in his hand. He apologized too, and that made Add frown.

"Why are you sorry? Because you have item teleportation or because you used it? I don't mind," she said. She frowned, then blinked. "That seems like an... useful ability to have," she managed, swallowing and shifting her grip. "I have often wanted to retrieve something that is out of my reach. How does it work?" This last was probably the first sentence that had any real intonation at all: she sounded genuinely intrigued. and why not? This was a puzzle she could get into without hurting anyone's "feelings."