One, Two, Three, Many

Suddenly and without warning, Jake Sullivan enters the room. But that's not so bad, because he lives here, and seemingly means no harm.

"Sky, that power you have is called Massive," he says without preamble. "I've just come from the root cellar -- it's okay. My reinforcing beams are holding up fine."

"It took me fifteen years to develop that power; I've got it doped out. It makes you a little stronger, but not enough to walk without falling over. So take small steps, shuffling your feet at first, till you get the hang of it. Okay? If you trip, you'll probably go right through that floor."

He looks intently at Sky.

"How are you feeling? Your blood weighs more than it used to. And if you keep using this Power, your bones and muscles are going to slowly get denser. Means you don' t have to keep it going all the time to be tough, but it also means you can't turn off the extra mass. If you like being light on your feet, you might want to lay off that Power most of the time."

"The good news is, it doesn't take much magic. You can stay Massive for a couple of hours, easy, and if you have more magic than I do, then longer. And if you really push it, I mean strain everything you got, you're pretty much invulnerable. Like that guy in the funny books."

Jake looks around at everyone. The socially perceptive among them (Belle, Kaze, Sky the gambler, maybe Michael) notice that Jake's looking hard at Richter, but covering it by glancing at everyone else.

"There's something else I've doped out over the years," Jake says. "I'm a Heavy. I eventually learned to be a Massive, too. So I've got two powers. And I've heard of other guys who had two Powers, also."

"The thing is, each Power is a different way of understanding the Power itself. The Power is putting out magic to everyone on Earth, but you hear it with your mind, not your ears. It's not a human being at all -- it's a four-dimensional space squid. So its mind isn't a human mind, either. Everyone hears it in their minds, all the time, but most of us can't understand what we hear. Each Power is like a different piece of what it's beaming to us."

"So I took the Heavy piece and figured out how the Massive piece, which is similar, worked. But everyone I know who has got more than two Powers, pretty soon, they've got 'em all. Seems to me you only need three pieces to solve the whole puzzle."

"And this is why I'm telling you -- everyone who got three pieces -- the Chairman, the Spellbound, Rasputin -- was as crazy as a football bat. Everyone except Faye, and she gave the Power back before it turned her mind inside-out. She thinks if she'd stayed connected to all the Powers, she'd have been thinking like the Power, and people can't think that way.

"Maybe the Power thinks in a different way which works, but on humans, it looks just like raving madness. And usually violent madness."

"Hell, what does the Power do? It gives us magic to fight and get stronger, then gathers it back up when we die. You see a person doing that, you call him a cannibal feeding on his gladiators, or worse."

Jake takes a breath. He hasn't talked this much in years.

"So if. IF. You get two Powers -- watch it. And don't ask for a third. Because you probably aren't the one person in history, so far, who can handle it."

Everyone is looking at Christine, who at last count had six Powers.

"What?" she says. "No, I don't have the Powers. I'm just .. holding them. Face-down, sort of?"

Jake's face is stone.