Deal's A Deal, A: Part 20

Deal's A Deal, A

«20»

By Ender

“Saint, Saint, Saint…” The seven plus feet of muscular perfection that was Deez popped into existence in Tony’s bedroom. Tony heard the lilting tone of Deez whisper in his mind, “You’re troubled, Tony?” “Yes, you could put it that way. I just realized that when I use my ability to help one person, the fallout is hurting other people,” said Tony. Deez thought for a moment and then nodded in understanding. This is about your gift to Mr. Matthews isn’t it? When you alter reality in a way that has a retroactive component as you did when you allowed Mike to make a different set of choices in his life that lead him to be Mick now, that altered the choices available to others. You are aware that Travis elected to make some poor choices in the new time line. Those choice were his to make and you didn’t influence his choice in any way the only reason that you are a aware of the alteration is the your action caused the bifurcation of the time line and therefore you have memories from both time lines. The same thing happens every time any one makes a choice but since the choices that most people make only alter the future no one is aware of how the choices interact. Your ability allows some of your choices to alter the past and therefore the present when they do you are aware of your interactions in both time lines.” “Okay, I’m not responsible for Travis being in jail now but if I hadn’t bulked up Brian and Shane, Brian wouldn’t have broken Travis’s jaw,” said Tony. “That is true but both Travis and Brian chose to act in the manner they did. And if you hadn’t chose the “grow” Mr. Hossler and Mr. Hart, they would not have been there to help you and Travis might have broken your jaw or worse. And we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Deez replied. “Alright… Bad things happen to good people and bad people sometimes win… it’s not fair but that is how the universe works,” said Tony. “That’s right, all we can do is make the best of the choices we are given,” said Deez. “Thanks Deez. That gives me some ideas to think about,” said Tony. “Any time you need to talk just call…” and Deez vanished.

Tony pondered how this new information would affect his future use of his ‘ability.’ “So I shouldn’t feel responsible for the choices others make; if I happen to alter the choices they have available to them by making something possible for some one else. Okay I suppose that is about the same as anyone deciding to do something, but I still think I need to give more consideration to how others are affected. I need to be careful with vaguely defined alterations like I did with Mick. And things that force a retroactive alteration can’t be taken lightly. I still need to do something for Donnie and his family, I hadn’t considered that giving Donnie have a major growth spurt would be a hardship on his family. So I want something simple and specific… So I want Donnie dad to buy a lottery ticket that will win enough cash to get Donnie’s family back of their feet… Now. Sorry it’s a bit late Donnie but Merry Christmas, your in for a big New Year,” Tony grinned to himself.

There’s got to be something I can do the make things better for Travis and try to help him back onto a more positive path. But to do it without the setting off a cascade of similar bad outcomes is going to be tricky. Tony phrased his alteration carefully to return Travis to his original timeline and the new Mike/Mick will move to a weight class to a fill a position that the wasn’t filled of the team, now. •

This collection was originally created as a compressed archive for personal offline viewing
and is not intended to be hosted online or presented in any commercial context.

Any webmaster choosing to host or mirror this archive online
does so at their sole discretion.

Archive Version 070326