Chương 41: The Book (Part Two)

Meili's Journal Entry #25: Dear future self, As I write this, I'm fifteen years old, and I've been in this world for five and a half years. If you have any memory at all of this year's November, you should know that I'm dealing with two very important discoveries. One of them concerns the 'amber comet' John dreamt of (or had a vision of), but in truth we haven't thought through it enough to write an entry on it.

The second discovery was delivered directly by Jane, and she's given us more than enough in concrete facts to justify this entry. To quote her:"The twenty highest alive control everything. These twenty are dominated by the eight true clans. If you don't understand the eight true clans, you don't understand what The Authorities are motivated by." I'm going to be quoting Jane a lot in this entry.

She added directly after this that we're very lucky, because only around a hundred people truly understand what exists at the top. Yes, this implies that only a lucky hundred people get to know things. Meanwhile, eight billion of us poor remaining idiots have to sit around knowing fuck-all or believing lies. I'm a little frustrated about it, yes. Can you tell? Alicia and I halfway expected something like this, but if there ends up being another secret level, some ancient and secluded 10.

0 that nobody knows about, then I swear to god- -I guess the 10. 0 would be God. Sadly, the deity comparison is a good way to illustrate their power. After learning about some of their abilities, I've started hesitating to use phrases like 'God help me,' because deities are what they are. The twenty highest alive have levels ranging from 9. 1 to 9. 3, and they fit into The Central Authorities by being the leaders of continents.

(Of course, when Jane told us this, she was using 'continent' in the sense this world uses it, with everything split into what seem like odd chunks for your previous life. Don't make your fifth-grade mistake of forgetting about the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian 'continents.') My digression aside, Jane elaborated with the following:"The eight true clans dominate the list of the highest twenty. They have ruled in the top ranks for hundreds of years through selective breeding and embryo selection.

Every generation, consistently, each clan puts a male and female in the global top twenty. Let me repeat that, because this is something that needs to be emphasized: they produce exactly a single male and a single female every thirty-year cycle, both of whom will always reach the top twenty. The older cycle drops from the list of the twenty highest alive when the younger cycle is old enough.

"They rely on a very strict set of 'family-making policies' to achieve this consistency, to guarantee the passing on of their monstrous strength and abilities. Take the Wang and Romanov clans as examples. They're a recent breeding pairing from fifteen years ago. And when I say 'breeding pairing,' I mean that the male Romanov pairs with the female Wang, and the female Romanov pairs with the Male Wang… Well. John, I certainly hope you're old enough that you understand what sperm and egg refer to.

"Of the four children they had together, the two children with the 'Master Of The Earth' ability now belong to the Wang clan's central lineage. The other two with the 'True Eternal Cold' ability now belong to the Romanovs' central lineage. Each of the eight true clans' central lineage reproduces solely in this fashion, by pairing with another of the eight true clans. And, in order to prevent genetic defects, the clans cycle around their pairings each generation.

"I call it a breeding circle, between the greatest families in the world. One where genes are passed around but never get out." … That's it - and you get it, right, future self? It just goes on and on, the cycle repeating itself, with these eight clans gatekeeping their collective gene pool from all others. That's how they've stayed at the top. They originated from all over the earth, but by now Jane says that they're extremely mixed, a blend of every possible physical feature. But wait a second!

You might say, if you haven't had the discipline to review this entry enough. A man/woman for each of the eight clans… that's only sixteen people, isn't it? So what about the other four top-rankers, including Jane, who round out the top twenty? What disqualifies their families from being 'true clans?' The answer is that only members of the eight true clans can reach 9. 1+ without evolving their abilities. The remaining four members of the twenty highest alive are all from level 8. 5-8.

8 clans who were lucky enough to see their abilities evolve. The same was true a generation ago, the generation before that, and the generation before that - only with different clans filling in the four lower spots each time. (An interesting takeaway, here, is that none of these clans have figured out a way to reproduce their ability evolutions with any consistency.) So Jane is the strongest in her clan, an outlier by a lot. The others are generally around 8. 6.

This debunks most of our old guesses while confirming just one of them: when The Central Authorities started using William to threaten Jane, her clan couldn't afford to put up much interference. Not that they even tried, it turns out. In the end they did the opposite. They sold her off eagerly, sacrificed her to the gods, with a deal that they would give up Jane if the rest of the clan could remain untouched. And Jane hasn't told us any more than this, but I can already guess what the logic was.

What value did she have to the clan thirteen years ago, when Jane insisted on 'diluting' their prime genetics with William's cripple sperm, when she put the strength of love above the clan's strength of bloodline? Better to throw her away as appeasement bait and protect themselves. (Your outrage leads to nothing, you know this. Just let it wash right through.) As a final note, I've taken the 'why didn't Jane's clan save her?' point off the theory list.

Beautiful I finished writing my journal entry, stood up, and nearly tripped on a mound of junk. An unfortunate fusion of clothes, books, and litter cluttered the floor, reducing the walkable area in my room to a sad strip of hardwood. It was almost claustrophobic enough for me to want to do some cleaning. Almost. But I was unfortunately occupied, in what was becoming a trend, with thoughts that didn't deserve to be second-fiddle to collecting stray trash.

"Clean your room. Do some exercise. These are the two things you'll never regret spending an hour on." So said literally every single self-help book, but I was fine discounting the advice, considering the… unique situation I'd gotten myself into. I planned to spend my hour thinking instead - or two hours, or three, or five. Weather's fine enough to walk, I thought, opening my window. I grabbed my backpack and jumped into a four-story fall.

My ability activated, evening air and light sleet pricking my cheeks as I fell. My monstrous hands sprouted wing-bones, which in turn sprouted soft, bloody feathers that gave me supernatural lift. Firm ground waited below me, but I flapped my crimson wings right as I reached it, reducing any landing impact to essentially nothing. I demanifested the claw-wings but kept my body enhancement for the cold.

John had actually begged me to learn how to fly, a month before: it was the only way he could use his favorite feature of Devil's Hands without revealing that he could go beyond copying. So I'd learned. Definitely not because the mere idea of flying also gives me childish glee, or anything like that… … And he's more than repaid that small request, in any case, I thought. My mind was stuffed full of thoughts related to our recent accomplishments.

It was the last few hours of the week, our most successful week since the school year's start. We'd managed our first aura extraction on Tuesday, potentially seen lost history on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday John had managed to get Seraphina to talk to him twice. Even better, they'd been very advantageous, long conversations – if I trusted that John's recounting was accurate, and I did.

Typically, when I mentally listed out successes I also made sure to cover recent losses - but this time they were few and minor. One was that I wished John had shown more patience, by holding off on asking for a Time Manipulation demonstration for a few days… But that was me being a bit nitpicky. Talking to someone about their ability, asking to see some cool tricks, was one of the most normal and natural things you could do. The other loss was that I'd resorted to tricking him with a false impression.

Even now, John thought that he was just the pre-show, and that I was still preparing the real recruitment pitch. He could potentially take it badly once he learned that he was the recruitment pitch, and my plan really just boiled down to having Seraphina start wanting to hang out with him after school. I hope he understands my reasoning, I thought. By now I was pacing in what was surely a bizarre, pointless pattern.

He might have acted totally differently, if he knew that his 'normal conversation' was my best plan for getting Time Manipulation. More generally, with Seraphina, we had to account for the things Alicia had seen in her spying. Seraphina's poor relationship with her clan was the main one, but our list of observations went far beyond that. I looped through the list, in deep thought, for what was probably a few times more than strictly necessary. A message notification rang me back into reality. It was from William.

WDoe: Did you give John the story draft? ## I started typing back, starting down a path to the boys' dorms. Meili: I'm heading to him right now. ## There are other things, I reminded myself. There are twenty other things that are more important to think about. That was likely an exaggeration. But based on ability levels, the thought was true: there were a whole twenty people at least as powerful as Jane, all 9. 1s or even higher.

For all my stressing of how important they were, John and Seraphina could easily cap out in the 8s. Twenty people who could individually threaten a metropolitan area… I considered it. Why don't we ever see - or feel, really - the effects of them fighting or training? Why don't we have massive craters formed out of nowhere, mountains split apart, or suddenly-missing forests? Seemingly none. And it's not clear, exactly, what it means to rule over a continent. Do they actually write out the specific policies?

Are they more of a symbolic rubber stamp? One guess is that they're similar to modern authoritarian regimes in my first life: the top leaders give some broad directional statement once a year, and then all the lower authorities scramble to make policies that fit. Also… Where and how do these people live, exactly? If barely anyone on earth knows about them? Fake identities and disguise abilities, possibly - maybe they masquerade as 'mere' 8. 5s most days.

Really, it's hard to imagine just how tight the security around them must be. It's possible that we'd be risking too much by trying to get a strand of hair. I hoped that Jane planned to tell us more in the weeks to come. Maybe she would explain that the top echelon only trained and fought at Point Nemo or Antarctica. Maybe they moved around using personal teleporters, Spatial Manipulation users. Maybe, maybe, maybe, on and on… there were unlimited guesses to make, all unverifiable.

Still, there was one thing I was very glad to know for certain. Knowledge of the true clans' existence wasn't dangerous by itself – Jane wouldn't have given it to her son if it was. And this meant I could finally let go of a long-time worry of mine. Specifically, a globewide mind-reader who asked every day: ' who are all the people who know too much?' If Jane didn't think someone like this existed, then I was fine thinking the same.

So despite my initial anger, even the meeting with Jane could be considered a victory. That would make it four in seven days. I was probably overreacting - but there was this new positive sense I had, of enthusiasm for the future, inspired by the favorable week. It was a hopeful feeling, not the kind of hope you willed into being, to keep yourself going, but the true kind that bubbled up without any input. Sleet had turned to a bare drizzle, then nothing at all.

With my sense enhancement, I saw and felt that the night would be mostly cloudless. Wellston High didn't feel as trapping as it had before, at the same time last year - or maybe I was just feeling more positive about the whole world. The recent successes were definitely biasing me, I realized. My logical mind was saying very firmly and correctly that we still hadn't actually achieved anything. I tried to balance myself out by focusing on any losses, related to Jane's information…

It did feel like a loss, not on a practical but a personal level, to learn more and more about Jane's hidden past while keeping her husband in the dark. I would soon know immeasurably more about William Doe's wife than William Doe - my favorite author - did himself. (There were times when I would think about telling him what I knew. And then I would recall the image of that one awful panel, of William's gray and purple carcass sinking beneath the earth, each heaping shovel-full of dirt a contribution to his forever burial. And I would think: If there's even a one percent chance that the truth leads to his death, like it did originally, then I can't possibly tell him.) I would have been fine stomaching this, too, if William and I had stopped messaging on his server with the start of the semester. Less interaction to feel conscious about.

Instead, as we approached the day Unordinary (his novel) was fully finished, we kept talking even more. I was essentially a part-time unpaid proofreader. William had asked me to take the role, after catching on quickly that I knew what I was talking about when it came to fiction writing. I was pretty happy to be recognized.

Writing a novel had been a large goal in my previous life - I wasn't remotely close to as good as him, but I was competent enough to make suggestions, and William didn't exactly have a wealth of options to choose from. Naturally, I wasn't spending all this time on the book just because I enjoyed it, or because I liked William's writing (although both were true). Unordinary was a very special story.

It was a story about a lone god-tier in a world of cripples, an intimate expression of a father's hopes for his son, and a story that would eventually inspire a superhero vigilante movement that spanned the continent. There were benefits to being involved. After something like two dozen stops for thought, I finally made it to the Wellston boys' dorm. I looked upward, and the lamp-lights in John's room glowed through the glass. He was definitely there.

I manifested and stretched a claw to his fourth-story window, tapping in a precise pattern, until John opened up.

"What is it?" He stuck his face out, calling down. I zipped my backpack open with my non-claw hand. I pulled out a 400-page-thick paperback, labeled Unordinary in a custom font.

"Your dad's going to release his book soon; he wants you to have a copy early." John made a face.

"You know it's gonna be, like, three months before I have time."

"I know, but I think you'll like it." I tossed it up, my enhancements making it trivial. He caught the book and studied it. A little skeptically. I recalled William's immense dedication, the noble reason he'd written it for.

"Scratch that - I know you'll like it," I corrected.

"You're exactly the target audience." Beautiful Sunday, November 1 (one week ago) WDoe: They're saying it's the single best thing I've ever written, Meili. Better than Best Day Ever and Doomed Forest. ## This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Meili: Really? That's fantastic, William. ## WDoe: But I've had beta readers say that for literally every book. ## Meili: Aww. ## Meili: At least you know I agree with them. ## WDoe: Yeah.

And it still seems promising, because the percentage of them saying it's their favorite is higher than any of my previous books. ## WDoe: Which is great, because I need them to say that if I want my publisher to hear me out. ## Meili: Wait, can you explain that last part? ## Meili: Are these beta readers just the same group of longtime fans that you trust enough to give early access? I was under the impression that you only have them to get feedback and ratings. ## WDoe: Yes and no.

Early feedback is only one part of it. ## WDoe: The other part of it is this. My deal with my publisher has a stipulation for online reception; it basically says I have to come in with a certain level of positive reader feedback to get published. That was the deal that let me break into the space. ## WDoe: The actual 'threshold' for publication is different for each book. For Best Day Ever, I was putting it out when two other Time-looping novels had already done well.

The genre was pretty proven, so its 'rating requirement' wasn't as high. ## WDoe: Doomed Forest, on the other hand… ## Meili: They needed more assurance that there would be an audience for the story, since the genre was too niche. I think I get it. And Unordinary doesn't even fit into a genre, I'm realizing. ## Meili: Wow, yeah. I don't know what the closest genre would even be, maybe alternate history or something. ## WDoe:? I don't think I've ever heard of that as a genre.

WDoe: But yeah, you've basically got it. The premise is so 'off-genre' that they're asking for nearly perfect reception. ## Meili: That seems pretty awful. How do these people think genres are born - by writing in the same vein for all eternity? ## Meili: Anyway, assuming you reach the cutoff, is that when you start working with a copy editor and line editor? I'd like to know what exactly the timeline is. ## WDoe: Uh. ## Meili: What? ## WDoe: They obviously don't give me any editors, Meili. ## Meili:???

WDoe: I get someone who either tells me it's polished enough or tells me to get back to editing. ## Meili: But I thought Square Books was an actual reputable publisher. Not that the other novels they've done are all fantastic or anything, but they're still a pretty respected name, right? ## Meili: Oh. ## Meili: Right, got it. ##... Monday, November 9 Meili: I gave John the paperback copy last night. ## Meili: We can talk for the approx. two hours of my morning free period. ## WDoe: Perfect.

I was just thinking of telling you that I recently had the most prideful moment of my life. ## Meili: From what? ## WDoe: Well, there's this guy who once scored me 2 stars while calling the story 'reasonably good.' He actually did that three times, now that I think about it, for three different books. ## WDoe: But he just gave me a 3. 5 for Unordinary. ## Meili: Out of five? Like, seventy percent?

WDoe: You don't think it's that impressive, but let me tell you, some people think rating a book 4 stars or higher is an act worse than murder. ## Meili: I just don't know if I'm supposed to congratulate you for a 3. 5. Maybe if it's the highest number on a super critical scale… ## Meili: I have to say that, in general, I've always been kind of skeptical of applying the five-star rating system to novels. ## WDoe: In what sense? ## Meili: I mean, I'm really just thinking about the people giving the ratings.

I bet half of them would unleash a gatling gun of cripple-adjacent slurs if they ever learned your level. Even in the half who wouldn't, their proudest, happiest memory is probably cracking another teenager's skull when they were in high school. ## Meili If this is the audience, I can easily imagine an insightful, engaging story getting nothing but low ratings. I can imagine mediocre, formulaic slop getting five stars. Why should their opinions affect how good you think your story is? ## WDoe: You can say that…

but what exactly would the alternative be, for evaluating the quality of a story? You can't just decide by yourself that you wrote something great, or everyone would be the greatest author in the world. ## Meili Huh. ## Meili I guess I don't really know. ## WDoe: ## The way I think about it is, if the population of readers is so far gone, why write a novel in the first place?

If their values, their sense of what's good and meaningful and enjoyable can only ever contradict yours, why put your story out to the public at all? ## Meili: Sure, I understand that. ## Meili: But I still think it's totally unjust, that when I go to Greatreads. com and filter by 'Time Travel', I have to go down forty spots on the list to get to Best Day Ever. Honestly, does that seem right to you? ## WDoe: You're asking me to do something very taboo here, Meili, if I say what you want me to say.

WDoe: I can't just put myself above another author unequivocally. ## Meili: But you are above them, in writing ability. By far." ## WDoe: Meili… ## Meili: It's not like anyone's watching us. You can be honest. Do you really feel okay with it, when you read some of the titles above you? ## WDoe: I'm certainly not going to name any names. ## Meili: You're too nice, William. You're too peaceful. I haven't said that to literally anyone in my life, but I'll say it to you. ## WDoe: …

WDoe: It is definitely true, that I have to write at a comparatively higher quality to reach a reader. Authors who I think aren't quite as good but write mass-appeal stories will probably be more successful. As long as I write in an honest way, I'll always be at a fundamental disadvantage. ## WDoe: But I accept that, because I still get to make a living off of what I enjoy most.

And because I prefer to reach the smaller fraction of people who like my honest writing - above the larger audience I could potentially reach by writing according to formula, dishonestly. ## Meili: I think I'm just annoyed when I see coming-of-age, weak-to-strong, high school fighting story number 96337 get hailed as a new age masterpiece. ## WDoe: No comment. ## Meili: And then I look at greatreads reviews for Best Day Ever and it's like, 'not enough progression, one star.'

'The protagonist's motivation is illogical, 0. 5 stars.' ## Meili: But it's illogical only from the narrowest perspective. When they assume people's priorities and aspirations should be the same as theirs. Is just a little open-mindedness too much to ask for? ## WDoe: By writing a non-standard story, part of the implicit job description is getting the reader to open their mind to it. If I can't do that before most people stop reading, then that's a failure on my part.

Meili: You know, six months ago my response would be that this isn't a fair standard. It sounds like a standard by which every single story you write is doomed to failure. ## Meili: But now that Unordinary's in the final stages… ## WDoe: So you have the same feeling. ## WDoe: It is looking pretty damn good. ##... William sat in the empty lounge at his publisher's office, reading Meili's messages on his laptop while he waited for a meeting that he'd shown up an hour early for. He was also shaking.

He had been averaging five hours of sleep a night, ever since he'd finished a polished draft of Unordinary, ever since he'd realized what it was that he had written. Each morning, he woke up in a chilled sweat, his mind overwhelmed with delusions of authorial grandeur and universal praise - delusions that had come and gone through decades but never with such strength. He'd needed three breaks to finish brushing his teeth in the morning. One break to analyze some minor dialogue. One to self-critique some prose.

One to examine a character's inner monologue. Then during breakfast he'd needed something like twenty-five – twenty-five writing breaks, to look at twenty-five different parts of his four-hundred-page story, to potentially make twenty-five edits. Edits he didn't know were right.

Edits he was both frightened and eager to make, because they could easily be the final stumbling blocks that kicked him from 'great' to 'good enough,' but just as easily do the opposite, take him that final level upward, from a great work to the work that would define his life. William gripped his hot cup of lobby-machine espresso. The scent of coffee beans and the heat-wilted paper cup calmed him, but his hands stayed cold.

He'd been acting like he was unfazed to Meili - acting the same way in messages with essentially anyone. He hadn't left the house. Meili knew the most, with her level of involvement, but the extent of her understanding seemed to be that Unordinary was a great story, one with the potential to do well. William understood it in a lot more detail. The novel's protagonist was optimal. A lone god-tier 'superhero' who stood above an ability-less world.

Perfect for attracting that too-common archetype of reader, the type who only read books to self-insert themselves into someone of a higher status than they were. The worldbuilding actually worked, somehow. It was a world without abilities that still managed to feel real and self-consistent, with such a perfect logic that William could scarcely believe it. He almost debated giving Meili a secondary author credit, because he'd taken so many of her worldbuilding suggestions. The hook was also perfect.

The first chapter was the most attention-grabbing scene he'd ever written. A classic revenge scene, in five pages of the protagonist acting with every inch of justice on his side - only to take it too far, stranding him in a moral wasteland. The characters' personal development was so gradual, so non-explicit, that it would essentially trick every power fantasy-obsessed reader into liking something they didn't like.

The mid-story plot pushed forward with a perfected pace and momentum that came from months of editing. The writing became intimate and emotional, in sections near the end - in a raw and fitting way that he'd never managed before. Because, before this, he had never dedicated a story so deeply to his son. So all the factors were on his side.

Of all his stories, it was the one with the most potential for mass appeal, while also being the best-written, with an extremely thorough and detailed level of editing that he'd only managed because John wasn't in the house, and that wasn't even considering Meili's contribution, compared to all the other projects where he'd been alone, and– A brunette woman swung open the door to her office. The silver plaque on the door read:'Deborah Zhang, Publishing Director of Square Books.'

William rushed to stand, flicking a speck of coffee onto his formal pants. He was ready to list every single point in his thoughts to get his book published. He stepped in for a handshake.

"Deborah, it's nice to see you-""Likewise, but I'm not going to waste your time, William," the grey-haired woman said flatly.

"I'm not going to give you false hope. I want you to know that I have nothing against your new book. I even enjoyed it." He felt himself go perfectly still. She pursed her lips.

"Unfortunately, our public reception team estimated an unacceptably high controversy level for Unordinary."

"I'm sorry?" In a better state he might have understood right away.

"I - what exactly does that mean?" She crossed her arms, slightly wrinkling her pastel green pantsuit.

"We ran some analysis abilities on your manuscript… which is outlined as fair game in our contract," she made sure to say.

"There's a high potential for twenty million readers. Twenty million people reading a book with contents like yours isn't something we can handle." What? Twenty million… What?

"... I don't understand," he managed in a stiff voice.

"You've been asking for 'more mainstream' and 'more sales' for a decade, Deborah. I've made attempts in good faith. Are you telling me that, now that one of them is on track to succeed-" -I'm being punished? Why is my popularity punishable?

"This is not an attempt to victimize you, William," she said.

"Just a million readers might be too much. You and I can both admit that The Authorities will despise the themes of societal equality and charity in your story, even if you did a good job with the subtlety. If our name appeared on the back of twenty million sold copies, Square Books would cease to exist." He stood there, trying to find something to argue with. … She's completely right, he thought to himself instead, realizing just how self-evident it was. Of course.

Deborah tended to be amazingly fair for a high-tier. She shook her head. He didn't even feel any snobbish disgust toward him in the gesture.

"Fame Prediction and Infamy Prediction abilities paint too risky a picture. You're not getting published. If you're going to self-publish on the internet, William, I sincerely suggest that you take every measure to stay anonymous." Beautiful Meili: Would it be wrong of me to say that I don't think this is even that bad? ## Meili: If you were definitely going to get punished by The Authorities, which is what it sounds like she's implying, then isn't avoiding that outcome a good thing?

Can't you still post it anonymously online? ## WDoe: Yeah. The whole thing's going up in a few days. ## WDoe: I'm mainly bothered by the fact that I can't even put my name on it. That I'm being forced to use a fake name and identity and take security measures, for what is both my favorite book and the one they say will be the most popular. ## Meili: I guess I didn't really think of it that way. I'm sorry. ## WDoe: Please, this is anything but your fault.

WDoe: And really, too much anger on my end would be hypocritical. My position has always been that authorial prestige is vanity, and that the story is truly the only thing that matters. I may have set myself up. ## That's not true, I thought, my relief spiking as I replied to William's messages. You didn't set yourself up. … It was very convenient for me, for everyone, that William Doe's name wasn't going to end up connected to Unordinary.

Very convenient that William wouldn't end up getting investigated by The Authorities, for his controversial and 'dangerous' novel. It was convenient that the son (John) he'd dedicated the book to wouldn't be investigated… that Meili Strauss, the girl who helped him with the book, the girl who shared fifty pages of chat history with William, wouldn't be investigated for her connection. What an amazing, lucky, fantastic coincidence! That we got to avoid being under The Authorities' microscope, at this crucial time.

But it wasn't a coincidence. Of course. No, William. I was the one who set this up. … In my first life, as I read the original webcomics, I had once wondered to myself: how in the world did William manage to get Unordinary published? Whatever publisher it was, they obviously would have read William's manuscript. And if they weren't completely brain-dead, they could guess how The Authorities would feel about the published book. Why had they placed their name and brand behind something so dangerous?

Then, after being reborn in this world, I had learned that book publishers used specialized abilities to estimate a book's future audience reception… Which made me even more confused about how Unordinary (the novel) could have slipped past the publishing process. The answer that I'd landed on, the answer that had just been proven correct, was popularity. Put simply, in the original timeline, the publisher had not evaluated Unordinary as a novel that would get extremely popular.

They had therefore not seen it as too risky to publish. After all, it was totally true that Unordinary hadn't grown to extreme popularity in canon. It had started the superhero vigilante movement, yes, but it was always portrayed as an underground cult classic that gradually built up a following. It had actually taken The Authorities a few months to ban it in canon… which implied the existence of a long circulation period before it caught a higher-up's attention.

My plan had been to make the novel drastically more popular than in canon. My writing ability wasn't nearly good enough to do this, so I'd cheated by providing enhanced worldbuilding. Unordinary (the novel) took place in an ability-less world, save for the protagonist - a difficult concept even for someone as imaginative as William. It was a hard fictional world for an author to imagine in detail, with all the potential nuances, if they hadn't lived in it. But I had lived in it.

It was hardly even worldbuilding for me, just a recollection of my old society. With worldbuilding making up less of the difficulty, William had been free to focus on other aspects. Polishing. Editing. Making the novel easier to read without losing meaning. Making it more broadly appealing without sacrificing theme. At least, that was what he seemed to have spent the time on. Whatever it was, it had evidently worked to improve the manuscript – which ultimately meant that my plan had worked.

Popularity times messaging equaled controversy. Too much controversy and the publisher had to refuse out of self-preservation. Once the publisher refused on those grounds, an anonymous internet release became William's natural choice. Anonymous release. This way, the Authorities wouldn't be drawn in to do a detailed check on William Doe - or me by extension.

There would be no suddenly-interested Central Authorities, no top twenty rankers dissecting my suspicious connection to William and John and Jane, eventually ordering that my mind get extracted for information. (And in general, I highly preferred for Unordinary to get extremely famous/infamous, so long as it couldn't be traced back to me.) I took a deep breath and closed my laptop with William's messages. It was only Monday.

My self-titled 'most successful week' had just ended, but I planned to keep the progress going indefinitely. Darren was making good progress on our first enhancement drug. Alicia was spying on our strongest target yet, an 8. 4. John had managed to get Seraphina to laugh at a joke. To keep this going, I had to be continuously vigilant, and use my knowledge to destroy threats before they existed.

I had to alter parts of the canon plot that could put Authority attention on us, while enhancing parts that accelerated our progress. Jane's message had clarified just how overwhelming the gap was. Just how badly they would obliterate us without our shield of secrecy. If we got caught then it was over. If someone high up got a single clue then it was over. Fast progress was fantastic; minimal risk was just as needed. Five victories in a row, I thought, staring out into the Wellston City skyline.

I won't get careless. I won't get caught. We were mosquitoes, we were gnats, we were still smaller than fleas. The top of the world, the many levels above us, could reduce us to bloody entrails with a single minuscule thought. But we can still make it, I concluded. If they never have the thought.