ZETA

A bout of insomnia prevented Zeta from receiving any proper sleep. A multitude of unpleasant factors contributed to its creation. By morning’s rise, his eyes had only closed to blink. His body was too exhausted to be exhausted, a miserable cycle.

Zeta strolled into the kitchen to find a stuffed bag of sigmas unaccompanied. He recognized the collection of colors to be the loot from last night, although Zeta wondered why it was just lying about.

Upstairs, he found Hera kneeling at the foot of her bed with a strange bronze statue sitting on the frame, her hands clasped together.

“Praying to God?” he asked. She didn’t flinch at his voice, so she knew he was there.

“Yes. I haven’t had any time nor motivation since you arrived.”

“Wow, so my presence is enough to disrupt your spirituality?”

“No, you fool,” she said. “In this profession, prayer is essential. Attunement with the Divine is obligatory for sigma usage. You would’ve known that if you knew anything at all.”

“Then teach me, Mrs. Verdure.”

“Only if you never call me that again.”

She scooted over, and Zeta copied her pose. He noticed her eyes were shut, so closed his as well.

“Zeta, I know you’re aware that sigma users have no numeric limitations on their powers. Sigma scores are indefinite, and therefore, so are the number of sigmas a user can possess. A long time ago, sigmas used to be rare, even at the Basic grade, but we’ve long since explored and exploited many of the ancient sites in which they were located. They are abundant, so how do you imagine people aren’t decimating the whole world every other day?”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“Of course you didn’t. Such is the fate of the uneducated. It’s because of something known as Divinity.

“To use a sigma, regardless of the score, the user must prove themselves ‘worthy’ of a sigma’s power. All worthiness means is that you need to accumulate a numeric amount of Divinity equal to the score of the newly acquired sigma. A score of 100 requires 100 Divinity, for example.”

“Which is why I’m sitting here praying.”

“Yes, but it goes further than that. Praying is a natural accumulation of Divinity, but prayer only provides about 10 Divinity an hour. To clarify what I said yesterday, sigma types speed this accumulation process up for fellow sigmas of the same type, which is why there are most users chooses a sigma focus. It’s the most realistic way to use sigmas, but it doesn’t discourage selecting sigmas from other types too.”

“I’ll be a focus for all types,” Zeta said.

“You’ll be eating those words by the end of the week. I’m not done, fool. Even with all I’ve told you, there’s still plenty of motivation for a psychopath to destroy the world.

“There are four Divinity Limiters, as scholars have identified. The first is one you already know: Rarity. Obviously, a mind sigma doesn’t cross my path every other day, and even if it did, I’d probably just sell it.

“The second is Mastery. Sigmas lay out the foundations for their use, but almost all require further training. The best sigma users don’t just know how to use their sigmas, they know when. They strategize, and they can pull those strategies to their benefit on the fly.

“The third is the Divinity Queue. This is what prevents people from employing multiple sigmas at once. If you employed every sigma downstairs right now, you wouldn’t be able to use any of them until the Divinity for all of them is fulfilled.

“The fourth and final Limiter requires an understanding of the concept known as Excess. More often than not, a sigma user will have a fulfilled all their sigmas’ Divinity, so what use is prayer then. All Divinity gained after complete fulfillment is stored by the user in Excess, and this Excess can be used to automatically satisfy any new sigma employed in the future.

“Here’s the catch. Regardless of the amount of Excess the user has, all of it is consumed upon the next sigma employment, even if the sigma score is a thousand times smaller than what the user has. 2 million Divinity Excess will all be wasted on a score of 2 thousand.

“People are greedy. The ambitious always believe they will one day have a Magnum sigma, so they’re constantly saving their Excess to use it immediately. Once you start saving Excess, you can never employ another sigma lest you are willing to lose it all.”

When she concluded, Zeta merely sat there and grinned. “Fascinating. Thank you for your morning instruction, teacher. If you’ll excuse me, I’d prefer some experimentation with the sigmas downstairs, so…”

“In regards to last night’s loot, I’m selling every single sigma,” she said as she stood up.

“What!”

“You only have yourself to blame. Berto, Igel and I need to recoup all the resources we spent failing to take you down. That courtesan’s dress was expensive, you know.”

They went downstairs, where Hera swept all the sigmas tightly in a sack. When it came to money, Zeta felt next to nothing, but when it came to sigmas, the greed poured out. Hera had just shown him what it was like to be taxed. He hated it.

“Oh, but I do have something for you since we were so successful,” she said. Hera reached into her Pocket Inventory and pulled out one of the standard sigmas. “Your reward. Congratulations, you’re no longer zero-score Zeta after you employ that.”

“Great! What will my new score be?”

“One.”

“One…hundred?”

“No. One. You gained one point. That’s Eject Sigma, the lowest scored and most common sigma of them all. You know what it does? It allows you to remove other sigmas from your person.”

“Better than nothing. I’ve never asked, but what is your score, Hera?”

“You can find that out when you get the next standard sigma. Needless to say, it’s greater than yours.”

Zeta stared at the sigma in his hands. Then an...embarrassing realization occurred. I bother her enough, this might send her into a frenzy.

Hera was filling a glass when he asked, “Umm, how do I…employ a sigma.”

Hera choked on the water, but she managed to spit the rest into the washbowl before suffocating. “Zeta, you’re joking.”

“Are you surprised?”

She growled. “No. I just wish I didn’t have to take care of a child at age twenty. I’m too young for this.”

Zeta gestured to the sigma in his hand, waiting for her answer. “Crush it, moron.”

“Crush it?”

“Yes, sigmas are rock solid most of the time. A building could fall on them, and they wouldn’t shatter. But in human hands, they’re as delicate as a flower. One of their many mysteries. Go on, squeeze.”

Zeta tensed his arm and strengthened his grip on the diamond of raw power. It was an awkward performance, but cracks quickly appeared.

Then the sigma shattered into a powder of particles that vanished into thin air.

“Did…did it work?” Zeta analyzed his body for any changes. Not even a tingle.

“Read.” A moment later, Hera smiled. “Yep, it worked. Sigma score of one.”

“So I can…remove any additional sigmas from my body, is that it? Could I possibly remove Eject Sigma itself?”

She nodded. “All is possible in the Sigma World.” She glanced around, notably towards Zeta’s bedroom. “Did Mrs. Olgue return home last night?”

Zeta shook his head. She furrowed her brow with concern. Another day of absence from that woman. It pleased Zeta to see that Hera cared.

To their shock, they heard the door burst open. Berto and Igel stormed in, tired but seemingly replenished from the two days of beatings. They still did not look pleased to see Zeta.

“Hera, we’re ready for our next mark,” Igel said.

“Yeah, the whole organization is rambling! I hear the Lilick brothers are out of business,” said Berto. “Damn, I wonder how Mr. Rex is gonna react to our first move.”

“Berto, he doesn’t know we made a move. As far as he’s concerned, they fled on their own accord,” said Hera.

“Whad’ya mean? He’ll think it’s us. I told him.”

Hera’s eyes burst open wide, she dropped the cup in hand, and her face went pale. A second later she sank to the floor.

Igel pinned his comrade to the wall. “You did what? Berto, why? Are you the biggest idiot on Axle Island?”

“I don’t understand the problem!” Berto cried out in desperation. “The Foxwell guy asked me how I was doing, so I told him ‘bout our new operations. I said business would be booming for all of us! He brought me to the boss, and I told him too.”

“You spoke with him directly!” Now Igel looked sick.

“Was it s’posed to be a secret?”

“Oh my God,” Igel said, gripping his stomach, “we’re dead, we’re all dead. I think I’m gonna be–” he ran for a washbowl to finish that sentence.

“The Lion grinned when I told him,” Berto continued, “but I think he thinks it’s a long-term investment.

Zeta raised an eyebrow. “Berto, what exactly did you tell him? Say it word for word.”

“‘Bout you. I said you ‘ere joining us is all. We got a new partner now, and I guess they’re interested to know.”

“That’s it? That’s all you said?”

“Yes. I swear. I don’t get why they’re so upset.”

“Dead…” Hera whispered from the floor, half-conscious.

Zeta walked to her side. Calmly, he tried shaking her awake. “Hera? HHHHHHeeeeeerrrrraaaaa…… There’s nothing to worry about. They don’t know you're plotting a revolution, they just know that I exist.”

She jumped to her feet in a fit. “Idiot! I’m not planning a revolution! That’s your idea!” She turned to Berto. “And you! You should’ve opened with that. Now Igel’s wasted half my dishware!”

“What did ya’ say, miss?” Igel said as he recovered from his stomach upset.

Hera took deep breathes to calm herself down. “Okay. Okay. We’re not in trouble, but we should be wary. Berto, Igel, we need to make revenue. Now,” she said as she grabbed the sigma bag. “Go sell these. Usual spots. Three-quarters the price. If one of Rex’s men recognizes the sigmas they’ll know somethings up, so get them out of here and get us our money!”

“Yes, ma’am,” they said with lackluster energy. For supposed partners, she had them whipped raw.

When they left, Zeta spoke to her. “Hey, stick with it. In no time at all, you’ll be strong enough to threaten him. It may happen sooner than we imagine, then we could make all his allies reconsider their ways without even shedding a single drop of blood. Now wouldn’t that be amazing!”

Hera didn’t flinch, nod, shake her head or any of her typical reactions. Instead, she just looked at him with sorrowful eyes. “There you go again. Idealism. Zeta, I’m for everything you aspire to be, but I know what is and isn’t realistic. It’s why I can’t be the model crime queen I think you’re picturing. Idealism is fine, but naive idealism will just get you killed.”

She went for the stairs. “Zeta, when we pray to recover Divinity, you don’t just sit in front of a statue. You do have to actually pray. Last night and this morning, I was praying for God to have mercy on your soul.”

It was approximately that moment that Zeta realized he forgot to apologize for the previous night. He followed that up with a question. However, do I actually need to?

Enhanced Assault - Dormant, Offense, Physical: Increases the effectiveness of an associated physical maneuver. (100). *Note that this is not a single sigma, but a collection of similar powers applying to various body parts.

(A) Perform the designated aggressive gesture. The enhancement is only strong enough to bring the force of the blow to slightly above natural peak performance. There are 15 sigmas in this collection, named 'Enhanced _____.' Headbutt, Poke, Swing, Jab, Front Kick, Side Kick, Dropkick, Elbow, Knee-up, Charge, Smack, Cut, Body Slam, Grip, Roll, Push, Tug, and Smash.