The Law of Averages

The APD were being overwhelmed. Dan could have figured that out, even without his inside information, just by watching the news. Downtown Austin had turned into a madhouse. Open warfare between gang members and police, a dozen fires had broken out, and now a riot was forming in the midst of the besieged areas.

Dan had been called in as a crisis volunteer, ordered to help resupply and reinforce the handful of trauma centers that had been set up across downtown. The underfunded, undermanned APD were stretched to their limit, and other public services were not doing much better. Emergency vehicles were being forced to prioritize, and hospitals were quickly being overwhelmed.

"Be careful," Abby told him, as she tightened the strap of his duffel bag. She worried over his clothing while Dan ran down his mental checklist of what he needed to bring. Abby straightened the collar of his shirt, and smoothed out the wrinkles on his shoulders.

He smiled at her. "I'll be fine."

"Things get crazy in times like these," she told him, still anxiously straightening his clothing. "Keep your eyes open, and be ready to run."

Dan gently took her hands in his own. He squeezed reassuringly, and repeated, "I'll be fine."

She stared at him for a moment, before wrapping him in a tight hug. "You better be."

Dan hugged her back, then pulled away. He planted a kiss on her forehead, then her lips.

"You should stay here until this blows over," he advised. "I'll be back."

He stepped out of the universe.

Dan reappeared at a street corner, next to a downed STOP sign. He could see one of those broad canvas pop-up tents set up across the street. They were commonly used as emergency hospitals when a victim's injuries were too severe or numerous to transport them safely. In this case, there simply weren't enough ambulances, nor hospital beds, to go around.

People moved in and out with controlled haste. He saw victims being carried in on stretchers, and the inside of the tent was filled with cots. There were medics shouting orders and volunteers in orange vests setting up a perimeter. Dan flashed his identification badge at them as he approached, and they gave him a nodded acknowledgement.

There were no police that he could see. Signs of their passing were obvious: that constantly fluctuating whine of sirens moving back and forth in the distance, or the occasional reflection of blue and red flashes racing past glass windows. And beneath it all, the low wailing keen of an air raid siren, something Dan had heard only once before. It was a warning to all who could hear it. There were villains about! Shelter or flee!

Dan supposed he should count himself lucky to have only heard it twice. The first barely even counted; it was in his first few months, watching Atlanta burn on live TV from the comfort of Abby's home. More than a year had gone by since that day, without anything major plaguing Dan, or even the country. No villain attacks, nothing that made national news, at least. No random disasters. Nothing terrible or catastrophic. Truly, a lucky year.

Dan did not feel very lucky.

He jogged towards a person shouting orders. Everything was much more chaotic than he was used to. Without police officers around to act as an obvious chain of command, things were messier, though still getting done. Dan could see several large trucks lining up on either side of the street. One of the drivers stepped out and began directing traffic elsewhere, allowing space for the emergency workers to do their jobs.

The man nominally in charge noticed Dan as he approached. Dan quickly produced his volunteer badge, color coded and classified based on his abilities. The long string of gibberish letters was meant to summarize the many applications of Dan's power. The man stared at his badge for several seconds, clearly calculating where best to park this new asset.

A new arrival made the decision for him. Another truck pulled up, this one bearing the logo of a local outdoor supply store. In the back, Dan could see dozens of steel cots and camping bedrolls piled up and strapped down. The driver's face stuck out of the window, as he called out, "Got supplies here, fellas!"

"Transport duty, Mr. Newman," the man in charge ordered. Dan hadn't even gotten his name. "Start bringing those cots to the other tents. You have their locations?"

Dan nodded.

"Good. Once the truck is emptied I'll have more for you. In the meantime, we have too many bodies and not enough beds. Get to it."

Dan got to it.

He appeared by the truck, where the driver had already begun to unload. With a brief nod, Dan scooped up a handful of bedrolls, and latched on to a cot. His veil surged through all of them, then drenched another three cots before his well ran dry. He tugged them all into t-space, reappearing inside the perimeter of a different medical station tent.

There was maybe twenty seconds of confusion, as people scrambled to make sense of his sudden appearance, but soon enough he was off again. It took five more deliveries to empty the truck. The second medical station had been vastly underequipped compared to the first. There hadn't even been enough cots left over to deliver to the third.

Next came bandages, gauze, disinfectant and painkillers. Locals showed up in droves to donate supplies. Dan watched a car pull up, its trunk packed to the brim with bottles of isopropyl alcohol. Another person arrived in an SUV filled with rolls of silken suture thread. These people weren't volunteers, and were immediately told to evacuate once their deliveries were made, yet Dan couldn't help but admire the sense of community he was experiencing. Seeing people come together in times of crisis went a long way towards justifying his faith in humanity.

He made several dozen trips over the course of twenty minutes, visiting both of the other medical stations. The second was still understaffed, barely keeping up with incoming victims. It had been hastily set up in lowtown, where the bulk of the gang warfare was taking place. The injured were often victims of collateral damage, grievously wounded by large-scale attacks or just stray automatic fire.

The third station was on Bering street, literally on the same block as the FBI field office. The feds had graciously lent their manpower to the station, and it was the only one with proper supervision. They'd set up a cordon around one side of the street, and were directing traffic in and out of the tents. There were also a handful of federal agents standing around in suits and looking generally intimidating. It was entirely possible that they would be needed to defend the little outpost.

This section of Bering was in the nicer part of downtown Austin, and had mostly escaped the violence thus far. Austin General Hospital was only a few miles away, so ambulances were being diverted here. It had been a safe solution thus far, but there was a full scale riot blooming across downtown, and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to its direction. The medical station very well might end up in the path of the angry, scared citizens.

Citizens of Dimension A were well schooled in how to act during a crisis. Civilians were expected to stay hidden and out of the way, and allow those who knew what they were doing to do their jobs. Something had clearly caused these rioters to snap, though Dan was not informed enough to know just what it was. The angry mob was looting and burning their way across town, completely disregarding the villain siren.

Fortunately, they were not the majority. For the most part, citizens did as they were told and stayed clear of the danger. And if those were the only two choices, rioting or hiding, then the problem could be dealt with. But no matter what dimension humanity was in, there would always be a small but intrusive subset of the population willing to risk life and limb to gawp at something interesting.

Rubberneckers. There was no escape, even while the city fell apart around them.

Dozens of civilians stood on the edges of the cordon, pointing phones at the feds as they walked around and shouted orders. Dan arrived on scene, bringing with him towels and water bottles from the primary station. It was the only station to be publicly listed, and thus took in the majority of donations. The feds were well supplied, but water was something that everyone seemed to be lacking at present.

He handed over the crates of water to one of the waiting volunteers, and turned to the supervising agent, ready to ask what else they needed. He was facing the open end of the street, towards the FBI field office, and the street was wide open. Most of the civilians had gathered around the barricaded entrance, leering over the checkpoint barriers like curious kittens. Dan was facing away from all of that, towards the nearly empty Bering street.

It gave him the perfect angle to watch an eighteen wheeler plow through the entrance of the field office.