Gabriel woke up with a slightly aching back, soreness throughout his body, and a very dry mouth that felt almost painful.

  He could have sworn that he could still taste the acrid smoke of the burning building.

  Stumbling out of the motel bed, he staggered to the bathroom, washed his face, drank a bit of lukewarm water, then began his usual morning ritual, ending with a shower.

  He came out of the bathroom with a fresh pair of boxers and his own well-worn pants, toweling his short hair dry. With a deep sigh, he threw himself onto the bed and let out a groan as his eyes roamed the room.

  There were several cracks – badly painted over – scattered across the walls, peeling paint everywhere, and somebody had graffitied one of the ceiling corners.

  ‘Spiderdong was here!’ was written in black Sharpie, accompanied by a crudely drawn spiderweb.

  Despite the situation, Gabriel couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘Ah…people never change…’ he mused as his brief amusement faded into heavier thoughts, while he laced his hands behind his head.

  ‘Based on how fast we were shipped off from the accident, I expect they won’t contact me until next week. Porter is at the lower end of the alphabet, so probably around Thursday or Friday. Until then, I’ve got this room.’ Gabriel let out another tired sigh. ‘I’ll need to look for another apartment. Preferably somewhere where I won’t be crushed by supers battling… Ugh… I hate apartment hunting.’

  With the unpleasant future before him, he slowly sat up, groaning as one particular spring decided this was the perfect time to puncture the surface of the mattress. He shot the mattress an irritated look, quickly got up – checking to make sure it hadn’t broken skin – then flipped the mattress over, redressed it, and with another groan summoned his deck to his hand.

  ‘I’m really groaning too much…’ he mused as he made his laptop reappear.

  The motel room had a table where he was close enough to a socket, so he plugged in the charger and opened the old laptop. While it booted up, he checked his phone.

  Unsurprisingly, nobody had checked on him. No worried friends, distant relatives, not even his neighbors, whom he spoke to once in a blue moon. ‘I hope they’re alive… they were nice people…’

  There were a bunch of automatic notifications – from emergency services, from the government – hell, even his landlord sent him a message.

  Curiously, he opened it.

  Only to see a poorly worded message with horrendous grammar telling him not to bother contacting the man and that his deposit was forfeit due to the damage done to the apartment.

  For a long moment, Gabriel stared at the message (after decoding it), then let out another sigh. With a simple motion, his deck produced his folder of important documents on the table, and he took out his rental agreement.

  After a quick read, he nodded and composed a message. Naturally, using small words and short sentences. He didn’t want to overestimate his landlord.

  ‘The contract says if the damage is from a superpowered battle, I get my money back. Read it.’

  Finding the clause a little too good to be true, he did a quick online search. Apparently, so many people were forced to the streets due to damage from battles between supers that the government decided to set up limited protections for the ordinary folks. After a few protests and deaths of people in the government, of course.

  In turn, all this was tacked onto villains’ rap sheets as destruction of property and such, making it easier to convict them.

  A minute later, his phone dinged once again with a simple expletive.

  Then another ding from his banking app showed his deposit of 1,500 credits being returned.

  He thanked the landlord, then blocked his number.

  A bit richer and happier, he returned the paperwork to the card, once again creating the purple-bordered card, and turned his attention to his laptop.

  Opening a popular local news site, he was instantly bombarded with articles about what had happened the night before.

  Shaky videos from people fleeing – or adrenaline junkies getting closer to the action. Dozens of articles about what Bombshell was wearing, some even speculating whether she might be pregnant. Official press releases from Bombshell’s agency, the Helix Group, and the City of Los Angeles filled the front pages.

  Idly, he clicked on one of the clips, unmuting the video that began playing the moment the website loaded.

  A newscaster stood in front of the ruined building, burned concrete and exposed rebar jutting into the air behind her.

  “ – and according to our latest update, Helix Group has pledged to clean up the site of the fight and rebuild the destroeyed residental complex. The company representative stated that plans have already been drawn up for a new, environmentally friendly structure designed to revitalize the area.”

  The screen shifted to several glossy 3D renderings of sleek, plant-covered buildings before cutting back to the reporter, who continued speaking with a flawless, camera-ready smile.

  “This initiative is part of their broader revitalization effort of the San Bernardino district–”

  Gabriel paused the video, the reporter frozen mid-sentence.

  “No. They can’t be this…bold. How is nobody calling them out on this?” he muttered aloud, staring at the screen, aghast.

  He opened a new tab and began searching.

  Within five minutes, he found the name of the construction company responsible for rebuilding the destroyed complex.

  Another thirty minutes of peeling back layers of corporate ownership later, and he had his answer.

  The construction firm belonged to one of Helix’s subsidiaries.

  ‘So…they arrange a fight, destroy the building, then buy and redevelop it?’ he mused. He wished he could say he was surprised. ‘What happened to good old-fashioned arson?’

  Another fifteen minutes of digging gave him the missing piece.

  Government subsidies.

  The government heavily supported relief and reconstruction efforts after superpowered battles – offering funding assistance, tax breaks, and expedited permits to companies willing to ‘step up’.

  ‘So it’s graft. Great…’

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Gabriel leaned back on the old couch and rubbed his face.

  He closed the tabs, then opened a fresh one.

  After all, he still needed a new apartment.

  Monday morning, dressed in his wrinkled uniform, he stepped onto the sales floor of Freshway, harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.

  He received exactly one ‘good morning’ – from the janitor working in the warehouse.

  Everybody else ignored him.

  Which, according to his inherited memories, wasn’t something new.

  The only person who addressed him directly was the store manager.

  “Still alive, huh? Don’t forget to stock those fancy sauces. They’re close to expiring.”

  “Yes, sir…” Gabriel replied, already reaching for a pallet jack.

  In his previous life, he had somehow managed to avoid working in a supermarket or big-box store. Customer service, yes – but never something like this.

  Still, relying on the spotty inherited memories and basic logic, he fell into the rhythm of the job quickly.

  Scan. Stock. Rotate. Answer stupid questions.

  Repeat.

  His mind wandered.

  First priority: find a new apartment.

  After spending the rest of Sunday searching, he was no closer to securing one. With so many people displaced after the battle, affordable rentals were scarce.

  Go figure…

  Still, Gabriel hoped that by the end of the week, something might open up.

  The world was different from his own – if you ignored superpowers.

  Technology, for the most part, matched what he remembered. The second phase of the internet: social networks, influencer culture, endless scrolling, algorithm-driven outrage.

  It also meant housing prices were painfully familiar.

  “If I play my cards right, I might even own a house someday,” he muttered under his breath while lining up another row of soon-to-expire sauces. “Every millennial’s dream…”

  As a small act of rebellion, he ‘accidentally’ turned a few bottles in such a way that the expiration date was visible at first glance.

  Petty, but satisfying.

  All this meant he was ahead of the curve in understanding social trends and media manipulation, but the existence of superpowers meant that whatever knowledge he had about future developments wouldn’t necessarily translate into easy money.

  ‘Hopefully…’ he thought as he broke down the empty cardboard box and hauled it back toward the warehouse to grab another load of product.

  However, the biggest thing occupying his thoughts was his new power.

  Or rather, the power the Deck of Infinity granted him.

  He dreamed of creating incredible constructs from his cards – fusing this and that, summoning giant robots, firing beams of unimaginable lasers while hovering in the air, laughing as attacks shattered harmlessly against his defenses.

  Unfortunately, he always woke up before figuring out how to actually do any of that.

  Still, just because he had to work, that didn’t stop his experimentation.

  On Monday, after finishing his shift, he stopped at a local Asian grocery store and bought two large bags of their rice. Back in his motel room, he absorbed those bags into cards, fused them, then split the result in half and reabsorbed it again – refining the contents until he had just under a kilo of Ordinary Spiritual Rice.

  Which, naturally, meant he immediately cooked a bowl of it.

  The warmth spread through him the moment he swallowed his first bite, the soothing heat unfurled through his muscles and chest. The lingering soreness in his back faded. Even the occasional cough that had bothered him since the accident disappeared, leaving his lungs clear and sharp.

  “Still ridiculous…” he muttered, finishing the bowl.

  Then came the next stage of his experiments.

  Over the next few days, he visited several small shops – the kind that sold everything from detergents to cheap electronics and off-brand tools. From them, he purchased about a dozen burner phones. He also picked up several multi-tools, curious what the deck would do with something mechanical.

  He made sure to spread his purchases across multiple stores and days, always paying in cash.

  Not that anyone seemed to care.

  One cashier didn’t even look up from his newspaper as he rang up the total. Another barely scanned the items before naming a price. Not even bothering to turn on the cash register. Gabriel said hello, paid, and left.

  No one paid him a second glance.

  By Thursday afternoon, after another monotonous shift restocking shelves and listening to his manager rant about immigrants, Gabriel returned to the motel, ready to begin.

  The items were neatly arranged on the small table.

  Sixteen burner phones – all cheap plastic, barely smarter than a calculator.

  Two dozen multi-tools, still sealed in thin packaging.

  Beside them in their own packaging: a cheap external hard drive, a mobile net dongle, a signal extender, a screen protector, several budget power banks, and a small hidden camera detector.

  Altogether, the experiment had cost him several hundred credits.

  He considered it money well spent.

  “First the multi-tool,” he muttered.

  He removed them from their packaging, stacking the bare metal tools into a small pile.

  Then he raised a card.

  Absorb.

  The mental motion – that subtle internal flick – came easier now. Feeling almost completely natural.

  The first card had a white border with the multi-tool on its surface, with a simple description: 1 x Low-Quality Multi-Tool.

  Expecting it, he quickly absorbed the rest, then began to fuse them. After the medium and high-quality multi-tool came the premium quality, and he was finally left with 1 x All-Purpose Multi-tool with a blue border and 1 x Premium Quality Multi-Tool with a white border.

  He summoned the blue-bordered one.

  The tool dropped into his palm with satisfying weight.

  It was beautifully engineered – compact but dense, containing far more tools than any standard multi-tool should reasonably hold. The grip was ergonomic. The joints moved smoothly. It even came with a fitted holster.

  Upon closer inspection, he noticed a discreet set of lock-picking implements tucked into one fold.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Well. That’s convenient.”

  He folded it closed and set it aside.

  The premium multi-tool remained in card form.

  He had plans for it.

  “Now let’s see what happens with electronics.”

  He turned to the pile of burner phones.

  Quickly, he absorbed the phones, then began to fuse them.

  The first fusion resulted in 1 x Burner Phone with a white border, which turned into Feature Phones. Followed by Simple Smartphones. Those were fused into Smartphones – confusing Sam with the deck’s criteria for naming objects – and finally, he was left with one sleek-looking Advanced Smartphone – though the card holding it still only had a white border.

  He summoned it.

  The phone was sleek and modern – clearly ahead of the current market curve by a few years, at least by his estimation. The screen quality alone was noticeably superior.

  “That explains the white border,” he muttered. “Advanced, but not extraordinary.”

  He dismissed it back into card form.

  Now came the real test.

  He absorbed the remaining electronics one by one. Then Gabriel began to fuse them with the Advanced Smartphone.

  First, the Premium Multi-Tool, then the mobile net dongle, the external hard drive, the signal extender, the screen protector, the power banks, and finally the hidden camera finder.

  The card pulsed faintly as the final merge completed.

  Gabriel closed his eyes.

  Took a deep breath, then opened them.

  The border had changed from white to green.

  The background of the card displayed the silhouette of a compact workstation – cables, antennae, layered circuitry. The central image showed a rugged but sleek device that looked both civilian and tactical. The text simply read: 1 x Urban Survival Smartphone.

  “Weird name…” he murmured.

  Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he absorbed his own phone and fused it with the new card.

  The card’s name didn’t change, but instead of brand new, it looked exactly like his old phone. Same scratches. Same scuffed corners. Same fingerprint smudges on the glass.

  He powered it on.

  The familiar operating system appeared instantly – but sharper. Faster. More responsive.

  His contacts were intact. His music library. His messages.

  Only now he had hundreds of gigabytes of storage. A person in his current world would goggle at the numbers, but to him, it was just the expected basics.

  The battery indicator read: ‘Estimated Remaining Life: 7 Days’.

  “Cool…”

  A new application icon caught his eye.

  Opening it revealed detailed signal analytics – tower identification, signal strength, routing pathways. There was even an option to manually select which tower to connect to.

  He tested it.

  The signal jumped instantly.

  Another app logged network traffic.

  Every ping. Every transmission. Time stamps. IP addresses – when available.

  It was comprehensive.

  He stared at the data feed scrolling slowly across the screen.

  “Pretty impressive for a few hundred credits,” he whispered.

  Currently, all this information didn’t really mean much to Gabriel, but he suspected that it would become rather useful in the future.

  He was about to head to eat his dinner – a bowl of spiritual rice with some sad salad he brought back from work – when his new phone began to vibrate in his hand.

  An incoming call.

  The ringtone was the same, but the screen now displayed far more information than a simple caller ID – routing nodes, connection strength, encrypted packet indicators.

  He didn’t understand half of it.

  He answered anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Porter. I’m calling from the Los Angeles Emergency Office. Do you have a moment?”

  The audio quality was pristine. No static. No distortion. Allowing Gabriel to hear every breath the other person was taking.

  ‘Finally…’ he thought.

  But out loud, he remained polite.

  “Of course. I’m at your service…”