My mother’s data suggested she was moody. Her heart was beating at an above-normal pace and her blood pressure was elevated. Which told me I shouldn’t make her cranky today or she might blow up at me. Some other power might have told me the crux of the problem; data vision though could only give me a limited diagnosis. 

“Ma, where are your bp pills?”
“Why?”
“Your face looks flushed,” I pointed out. “I think your BP is elevated. You should take a pill, for safety.”

My mother touched her face and said, “I am feeling slightly vented…” She paused before giving directions. “They are in the blue box on the rack. Do you know my pills?”
“Of course,” I told her and went to my parent’s room where I got the pills from the blue box of Vadilad butterscotch ice cream. My mother recycled boxes and bottles. That was just who she was. She made containers out of used boxes and cut the bottles into halves to turn them into flowerpots.
 
I gave her the pill and then brought her a glass of water, which I put back in the kitchen sink water.

“What’s for lunch today?” I asked while cleaning up after Abhey’s. I wondered if there was a way to make Abhey clean after himself without using a superpower. I kept wondering but nothing turned up.
“Potatoes and peas fry,”
“With rice?” I asked back with some expectations.
My mother hummed in agreement and I felt good, warm, fantastic.

One could never go wrong with that combination.

I threw our school clothes in the dirty clothes basket and ate lunch before going to my room. I was in a bit of a hurry. Although I got the power at school in the seventh period, there was not enough time for me to test it out at school. I needed to test the energy consumption of my other powers especially super brain and Photographic memory.

The results were shocking. Super brain that passively increased my brain capacity or intelligence was alone burning 100 calories a day at level one. Moreover, my slight transfiguration with disguise was achieved by consuming 120 calories. No wonder I was dying of hunger in the evening when I tested disguise.

In the heat of the moment, I tried to elongate my pinky finger just a tad and the calorie consumed shot through the roof. I only felt a burn on my pinky and fifty calories disappeared from my body. I was so frightened I didn’t dare do it again.

The limiter was also a one-time hundred-calorie payout. Thankfully, it didn’t need to consume any more energy every time I turned the limiter on or off. I wouldn’t have been able to afford photographic memory then.

No wonder they say, the little you know the better. This knowledge was horrifying.

Even Furnace consumed energy to work. It took away a steep 10% of the calories produced during digestion. Now my gut consumed 20 cal from every 100 calories produced to digest food. Yes, it was faster, but at an alarming cost. What would I do if my body could one day instantly digest everything, but it did that by consuming 90% of the calories produced during digestion? Would that make sense?

I wondered if I should limit my furnace too. Then I decided to take the decision after the coming level up, to see how that improves the digestion process. I remembered. I was only one skill away from reaching my next milestone and being rewarded an opportunity to level up all my skills once. Then I would have a choice.

According to data vision, Enhanced Endurance actually doubled my body’s ability to store glycogen. However, my body’s health was suffering from it. I also put improving my overall health on the agenda. Tackle this issue before it becomes a problem. I was a firm believer in prevention over cure.

Back in my room, I finally had time to open my books and see how much energy my photographic memory consumed. A test at rest showed me that the power consumed one Kilo-joule of energy every second even if I kept my eyes closed and was not memorizing any data. Similar to data vision and other level-one powers. Then I opened my eyes and the energy consumption jumped to ten KJ per second. Memorizing a page of worth of data increased the energy consumption to 45 KJ. I locked the skill behind tight security again. What an absolute monster. Thankfully, the energy it consumed came from battery. If it took the energy from my body… what would happen to me?

I looked at my belly fat and added the power to turn fat into energy to the ever-growing list of superpowers.

Data vision really gave me the run for my money. I was not done with it yet. I needed to test it more. I had been speaking numbers for 12 hours straight. I was tired, really tired, but it was my first real superpower. I wanted to explore the world with it and play until my heart was content. 

I left home and went out on the highway. There was a long queue of hawkers selling fruits on the road. I asked one how he sold the bananas and he gave me the prize of fifty rupees for one dozen. I checked his stand with the data vision and learned that the man was earning twenty rupees over every dozen bananas sold. He had sold two thousand rupees worth of goods in the day and his profit was 800, which considering he was just selling some fruits on a small cart was an insane amount. The man was earning the same amount as most fresh graduates.

I checked the probability of reducing the price by 25% and data vision showed me that there was only a 15% probability that he’d agree. I guess being at the prime location made him less vulnerable to haggling.

He sold his goods near the bus stop with a hospital next to him. Both the hospital visitor and bus passengers probably bought fruits from him. I checked the data of the other sellers in some distance and their data was bleak in comparison. The best numbers had only made a third of his sales. One of them was not even making minimum wage.  

The difference in earnings opened my eyes. It taught me that location was as important in business as the goods themselves. Perhaps, even more.

I moved on. Walking through the crowd on the roadside, data vision showed me there were thirty-four people on the road with me. A man walked past me talking on the phone and the superpower not only listed me the phone's cost price, the retail price, and the date of purchase but also specified its phone number.

I could get any girl's phone number. That was the first thing I imagined after realizing that it was possible. Then I realized that this was the ultimate pickup trick. The girls would be running after me to know my method! It would be so cool. I decided to try this trick the next time I went to the mall with Kartik.

Hell! I could try it now. I looked around in anxiousness but didn’t see any girls around. Tough luck. I didn’t notice it then, I was so engrossed and excited about the superpower that I had forgotten all about Anjali and what happened in the morning. It was a good thing, a much-needed distraction.

I tried a couple of other things with data vision before I asked it to show me how much money everyone had. I was thinking in terms of net worth, but Data Vision could only show me the amount of money everyone carried.

Everyone mostly carried a few hundred rupees on them. There were some people, young men, possibly college students, who looked like they came from good families, but carried not a single rupee on them. On the other hand, same-aged girls carried more money than anyone could ever need in a single day. I also realized that in a family, the men carried the most money while only a few women had any money on them and not more than a few tens of rupees. I couldn’t determine whether it was a trust issue or a glimpse of something deeply rooted in our society. None of the children that passed by carried a single dime, which I expected. While I was surprised to see a beggar carrying, close to two thousand on him. That was the most money I had seen someone carrying until I saw a man with a six-digit number hanging above his head.

The man was an overweight uncle with a big potbelly, in a white shirt with green stripes and coffee brown pants. He looked stressed, which his baldhead agreed with. Data vision showed the same. His happiness index was at two and his stress levels were through the roof. His heart rate was elevated, though slightly and his BP was tanking for some reason.

He was in a hurry. Walking at a brisk pace of 5.36 km/hr. He was sweating and tightly held a black handbag like his life depended on it. He was coming from the direction of the ATM machine. Seeing as he was walking toward me, he was possibly going to the hospital to pay the bill.

Then suddenly the man collided with someone and they both fell to the ground. I was too far away to see what happened next, but I was stunned to see that the man in a white striped shirt now carried zero rupees on him while the other guy in a black sweater was walking away with a bill of 1.5 lakhs hanging above his head. The uncle didn’t even notice it. He was robbed so plainly and easily that it made my mind boggle.

The thief walked away as if nothing happened. He didn’t speed up or behave suspiciously. I figured out the reason when he transferred the money to another person, a younger man in his early twenties who was coincidently walking toward me. This was a gang at work. The young man was also probably just a mule, moving the money. It scared me to know that they operated so close to my home.

I decided to help the man get his money back. Only I could. No one besides me knew who carried the money. There were no police officers around. They wouldn’t have been any help anyway. The police I knew from movies and heard in general were only good at intimidating others and taking bribes.

I stopped the uncle who was robbed. He looked at me warily and tightly clenched his handbag.

“Uncle, don’t panic. But you have been robbed.”
“What?” The man hurriedly checked the black bag in his hand and his eyes opened wide in panic when he found it empty.
“Where’s my money?” He looked around in panic before grabbing my collar in anger. “YOU!”
“Not me,” I told him grabbing his hand. He was starting to twist my collar, choking me.
“I know who stole your money and who’s carrying it right now. I will help you catch that man. But you have to behave yourself. If you act like this, you’ll make him suspicious. Then he’ll run away. Is that what you want?”
“Ho, ho,” He started hyperventilating. His eyes became wet. “That money is my son’s medical fees. I can’t lose it. I can’t,” he said with a trembling voice.
“I understand, sir,” I said politely, trying to calm him down. “Like I said, I know who has your money and he’s coming right toward us.”
“What? who?”

I grabbed his arm before he could turn back and warn the thief.

“They know who you are. Don’t make them suspicious. I’ll help you. I’ll entangle the guy and buy you time. You support me. Is that alright with you?”

“Huh,” The man looked around vigilantly as if he was surrounded by thieves.  

I didn’t have time to calm him down. “Here he comes,” I said and walked away from him.

I don’t know why I did it. Why I took action. Something told me if didn’t act this time, then I never would. I could have informed the man and left, but I couldn’t leave him after knowing that the money was for his son’s operation. Perhaps it was the result of everything that had happened in the past couple of days. Perhaps, it was a newly sprung sense of justice that enticed me to act. Perhaps, I was delusional.

Whatever the case, before long, I was walking toward the tall and lanky guy in the black sweater. I acted confident but I was panicking inside. I was but an eighteen year old after all. When was the last time I had been in such an exciting tussle? I wished I had some kind of physical superpower that could help me overpower the thief if it came to that. I didn’t. There was no medicine for regret. I could only make do with what I had.

My heart was in my throat.

What was the plan? I decided to go for the man’s legs and get him on the ground. I was hoping the uncle would uncle back me up on time. He was the one with everything to lose after all. Otherwise… nothing really. I would release the thief and we would go our separate ways.

They are a gang of thugs, I told myself. This was the best I could do.  

However, things went wrong from the beginning. I was probably staring too much or my thoughts were too transparent because the guy became vigilant of me. He slowed down and kept his guard up making it difficult for me to act.

Then the uncle screamed.

“You thief!”

The thief looked between the two of us, took a few steps back, and darted through the crowd in the opposite direction.

“Somebody stop him!” I yelled, but the thief was swift on his feet. I couldn’t understand where he found the strength from his lanky frame but he plowed through the crowd like a dump truck crashing through a field of corn. No wonder he was the mule, the legs of the operation.

People opened a path to him as if in cahoots. No one stopped him.

I decided to hell with it and ran after him. I wouldn’t say the morning proceedings weren’t on my mind. I had always been a coward, always kept my head down and eyes on the ground whenever someone confronted me. I had never pushed back. Perhaps, some other day I would have acted sanely, but I was severely distraught that day. I hadn’t slept last night and had been awake for over thirty hours, was low on energy, and was mentally and emotionally disturbed.

No wonder I charged after the man in the black sweater.

Turned out the thief wasn’t as fast as I had imagined. It was probably my enhanced endurance at work. I did have twice the amount of stamina of a normal person after all. I jumped at the man, wrapped my arms around his waist, and pulled him to the ground. There was so much adrenaline pumping in my body that I didn’t even feel it when we hit the ground. All I knew was to keep hold of the guy until help arrived, which arrived very shortly. Or did it take a long? I was singularly devoted to keeping the thief pinned on the ground and had no idea what was happening around me.

It was only when someone shook my shoulder did I realize that help had arrived. I looked around and found a crowd gathered around us. There were men holding the thief in check and could finally let him go. I went to stand up but someone told me to be steady and stay on the ground and don’t move. Why did I need to be steady? I couldn’t understand. I found some people looking at me in concern. The voices were still a muffled noise in my ears. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. There were some phones out capturing the whole incident. I was like great: now I was going to be famous. I wished I had disguised myself.

Slowly my breaths calmed. Just when I thought of getting up, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my gut. I looked and saw a knife sticking out of my abdomen. No wonder the people were so concerned about my well-being.

“What?” My hand subconsciously went to grab the knife. Thankfully, someone grabbed my hand and stopped me or I could have bled out on the road and…

“Let me go.” I fought him but he didn’t. I could feel my whole body turning cold. Was this the end? Was I dying? My thoughts were so rational and haunting. My only reprise was that I didn’t see much blood seeping from the wound. I thought I would make it probably.

“Help,” I somehow said before my consciousness started fading. It was probably the shock of the injury plus the tiredness working in tandem. So much for standing up for myself. It was the last thought I had before my vision slipped into darkness.