July 20th, 2022

I woke up early, left a note that I’d be gone all day for my mom and dad, and started my six-hour drive to Albuquerque. I left at 7 a.m. The drive was uneventful. Just after 1. p.m., I turned onto Osuna Road in Albuquerque and pulled into the parking area. As I drove into the parking lot, I noticed an SUV with very heavily tinted windows in a perfect ambush position for anyone walking up to the door to enter the two-story building.

Why was I thinking of it as an ambush position? Suddenly multiple references came into my mind from various Tom Clancy and Shadowrun novels I’d read. It seemed that my mind was defending the logical conclusion it had come to. Was I arguing with himself? No. But it was good to know that my mind had taken advantage of all the information I had access to. Then I realized that before yesterday I would have noted the car and kept on driving. It seemed that now that my mind was aware of all the changes and bonuses I was privy to my conscious mind was informed when things weren't lining up or my subconscious recognized a dangerous situation It seemed that I now had the ability to choose to engage in activities that I would have automatically avoided. I thought about how best to respond to a possible ambush, considered my options, and made my choice.

I drove my car through the parking lot until I could park one space away from the SUV. I made sure that the driver of the SUV would be able to easily see what I was doing with my hands. I pulled out my wallet and removed the ticket. I held it near my phone, then checked the ticket against the phone. I hopped up and down on my seat, letting my actual excitement come out a little bit. After a couple of minutes of this, I composed myself and unbuckled my seat belt. I used a little sleight of hand to place the lottery ticket in the driver-side sun visor, behind the vanity mirror where it wouldn’t be easily discovered as I opened the car door and moved to get out.

I stepped out of the Rogue, locked it, and turned to walk towards the Headquarters door. I heard the SUV’s passenger door open and close as I opened and closed my car door. The other person was making their way around the back of their SUV when I heard the telltale sound of a hammer being pulled back and locked. The driver-side door of the SUV opened, and a burly man stepped down.

“Excuse me, Sir?” the man asked as he walked to place himself between the headquarters business door and me. I guess he’d assumed would turn my back on his accomplice that was coming up behind me. As I turned towards the burly man I noticed the tip of a gun barrel, no, a silencer coming out from behind the back of the SUV pointing in my direction and let any doubt or hesitation wash from my mind as I thought “There is no Spoon!”

Time stood still as my mind went into hyperdrive. At a fundamental level, I’d started to believe what Abi had told me. When I thought “There is no Spoon!” and adrenaline rushed through my system, my mind broke the self-imposed shackles of my will that had been limiting my physical abilities. I realized that I had well and truly swallowed the Red Pill as my mind synced with my reflexes and I calmly assessed the situation. There was no adjustment, there was no morphing. Instantly I shifted from a young 21-year-old man that believed himself to be normal to a level 5,000 level human, the likes of which had not been seen in this Universe in a very long time.

I reviewed the situation analytically and broke it down: The gun is drawn. It is pointed at me. The individual is attacking from stealth. There is a high probability he or she is going for a kill shot. The burly man in front of me is a decoy. He positioned himself a little to my right which would allow any bullet passing through me to have a very small chance of hitting him Response Level? Terminal response with no direct evidence of my actions causing their death. Probability of success? 99.9%

While my mind analyzed the situation another part of me thought, I am not an evil person. If I had to choose an alignment from an RPG, I’d consider myself neutral with a few moral laws I held to, strongly leaning toward good tendencies. Today none of that mattered. I’d decided long ago “If it comes down to you or me, I chose me.” And that asshole behind me had pointed a weapon that only had one purpose, to kill silently. All these thoughts passed through my head in less than a tenth of a second as I responded to the attack.

I changed my voice and pitch and threw it towards the back of the vehicle where the shooter’s head would come into view. I’d been to a Jeff Dunham concert and taken the time to learn how to throw my voice a couple of years ago because I thought it was a pretty cool skill. Like everything else I tried to learn, doing so had come easily though I hadn’t been all that great at it the last time I’d tried. This time when threw my voice I did so effortlessly. A voice that sounded nothing like me yelled, “Freeze!” from the location shooter's head started to come around. Why? First, I had to make sure there was absolutely no doubt that I was being jumped by someone to anyone that could see what was going on or any cameras recording the scene. Second, I wanted to make it look like the shooter was trying to hold me up at gunpoint so I had a reason to react the way I was.

With my insanely high Agility, Dexterity and Strength, I waited until the gun was drawn up and pointed at my chest, then I moved. I tried to make all of my movements look as natural as possible. I was going to utilize my martial arts training to perform a typical throw with a couple of adjustments. I grabbed the burly man, pulling him toward myself as I performed the tomoe-nage technique by gripping high and falling backward then releasing. As I released the accomplice I aimed the opponent at the shooter. I continued my roll and allowed the attacker's hand to look like it had grabbed me and dragged me back up onto my feet as we both fell towards the shooter. Everything seemed to be moving slowly to me. I felt that if I wanted to, I could have performed more actions, but I didn’t. It would be better for everything that was happening to appear as natural as possible on any video or camera surveillance that might be recording this. I moved with the man I’d thrown making sure that I stayed very close to him. I made sure to adjust my roll to make it appear as if his body was tumbling and I was being dragged along. I positioned myself to stay behind and to the left of the thrown man to ensure that the bullet wouldn’t hit me. I also stayed slightly forward so that any blood spray wouldn’t hit me. One last detail I focused on was making sure to line the now flying man’s head up with the projected trajectory of the bullet path. At eighteen times the speed and strength of a normal human the results were just as I anticipated.

I heard a “Pfft” and saw the burly man’s head start to explode in slow motion. I adjusted the dead man’s trajectory, so he collided with the shooter. As they collided I reached between them and forced the shooter's head towards the curb. As I felt the shooters head hit the curb I added just a little pressure and released as I allowed my motion to take me farther onto the grass away from the two men lying in a heap. The man on top had died when his accomplice shot him in the head. The shooter had died when the back of his skull was crushed against the curb. To anyone looking on it should look like the shooter had killed the burly man and the burly man's body had come down on the shooter and crushed his skull.

I adjusted so that my hands remained visible to anyone coming up to investigate and waited. My perception returned to normal as I heard screams and moments later a police officer with a gun drawn moved up.

“Don’t move!” the officer yelled.

“Yes sir,” I said.

With his gun still on me, he moved up to my attackers and checked their vitals. Not finding any, he used his left hand to call for backup as he made sure to keep his gun trained on me.

“Are you hurt?” the officer asked.

“I don’t think so,” I responded

“Okay, slowly bring your arms over your head and then roll onto your stomach. I’m going to come up and pin you then put you in handcuffs while I check to see if you are wounded. If you feel any sharp pains stop what you're doing and let me know immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes officer,” I said as I slowly put my hands over my head, rolled onto my belly, and allowed him to pin and handcuff me. Once the handcuffs were on, he holstered his weapon and very quickly checked my legs and back for injuries while he also patted me down.

“I’m going to roll you over now and we’re going to check for wounds on your front side,” he said as he helped me roll over and lay in an awkward position while he check my frontside and my head for injuries while he patted me down again. Once he was done he helped me move to the curb and helped me sit about ten feet from the two dead men. “Stay here, I need to secure the scene”

“I think the one on the bottom had a gun,” I said.

It took fifteen minutes for another officer to arrive. It was another 45 minutes before my identity had been confirmed and the handcuffs were removed. It probably would have been longer but the officer that had handcuffed me had seen me pull up and park from his position inside the lottery headquarters and had seen all but the very last little bit. He said he’d been rushing out to arrest me because to him it looked like I’d assaulted the driver of the SUV but once he came upon the scene he understood what had happened. He hadn’t even seen the second man get out of the truck. This had all been verified when they checked the security camera footage.

When the ambulance arrived I was led over and placed in the back where a female paramedic looked me over. As I was sitting in the back of the Ambulance with the paramedic who was checking my vitals a detective stepped up into the ambulance and closed the door behind him. “Johnathan Bennard?” he asked.

“Yes, Detective,” I answered

“My name is Detective Rodriguez; we need to take you down to the station to fill out some paperwork. Any issues with that?” Detective Rodriguez asked.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked

“Nope, though charges could be brought against you later if the evidence requires it,” He said.

Looking at the medic I asked, “Excuse me, what’s your name?”

“Laura Ford, why are you asking?” she asked.

“Because you're my witness, Miss Ford.” I paused for a moment then looked at the detective as I continued, “I will voluntarily go with you to the station for the purpose of answering any questions you might have that I do not feel could be used against me concerning the death of these two men. Should I be considered a suspect, detained, or arrested at any time it is understood that I will say ‘I want a Lawyer’ and I will not utter another word until I have legal counsel.”

“Understood. As soon as paramedic Ford is done with you I’ll escort you to the station,” Detective Rodriguez said then asked, “Might I ask why you think you needed a witness to tell me that?”

“Government 101. On the first day of class, my professor gave a very long and compelling speech that convinced me of one thing. If the police detain or arrest you, ask for a lawyer. With Ms. Ford as my witness, we both know that I have stated what I’m going to do. Of course, I could forget to do that, but if you’ve been doing your research on me, you know how unlikely that scenario is,” I said with a smile.

“I still don’t believe what came across in your file, but if it’s even half true, yeah, I don’t see you forgetting to ask for the lawyer,” The detective said.

I wasn’t arrested, but I was at the station the rest of the afternoon. They’d even found blood on my clothes, so I had to turn them in as evidence. I guess my plan wasn’t as perfect as I’d thought. They were nice enough to let me shower and even gave me a new set of clothes, shorts and a t-shirt. The investigation went on for hours. After everything was said and done, the witnesses and time-lapsed camera recording of the incident made it quite clear that the two men had exited their SUV in a classic ambush move and when the word “freeze” was uttered by the shooter, whose face was obscured, I had acted in a non-lethal way to put the attacker in front of me behind me so I could flee towards the safety of the headquarters building. It was just dumb luck that idiot had grabbed and pulled me towards the shooter which resulted in his death and the death of the shooter. It looked like the shooter's death had happened when the man I’d tossed through the air landed on him crushing the shooter’s skull.

Detective Rodriguez told me that the District Attorney (DA) had looked at the evidence and wanted nothing to do with the case. As far as the DA was concerned, I had been jumped, and performed a non-lethal throw on Havier Sanchez who had been shot and killed by Richard Almendez. Havier then landed on and killed Mr. Almendez post-mortem. Case closed.

“You have no idea how lucky you are that the shooter was taken out the way he was,” Detective Rodriguez told me. “I do have one question though, why were you going to the Lottery Headquarters?” he asked.

“Well Detective, I drove over here from Clovis because I needed to check and see if I could claim my winnings,” I answered truthfully

“How much did you win?” Detective Rodriguez asked.

Looking to the detective, I responded, “Once I have made my claims and been officially documented as a winner of whatever amount I may have won, I will answer all the questions you might have concerning my motivations for coming to Albuquerque. The reasons will be on the public record after tomorrow anyway,” I said with a smile.

Not wanting to deal with a lawyer, Detective Rodriguez let it go and nodded. “That’s fine, I think we’re done here for tonight.”

All of my personal items were returned to me after they were cataloged and cleaned. They kept my clothes. They said I’d get them back which I knew wasn’t going to be anytime soon, if ever. I thanked the officers for their time and asked if one of them could drop me off at my car which was still parked over by the Lottery Headquarters. Once I was in my car, I looked up the closest Best Western on my phone and drove to it. I called detective Rodriguez, and let him know where he could find me if he needed to, making sure to record the call on my smartphone, just in case.

Once I arrived at the Best Western, I made sure to grab the lottery ticket, checked in, and headed to my room. I picked up a newspaper from the front desk and once I was in the room, I took a picture of the lottery ticket next to the date on the newspaper with the Best Western Albuquerque placard above it. I also made sure to have my thumb in the picture, fingerprint toward the camera. I saved the photo on my phone, on the cloud, and also emailed it to my alternate email address. I sent a message to my parents, letting them know I was out of town for the night, but that I should be back tomorrow.

The next day was somewhat anticlimactic. I had no issues at the Lottery Headquarters. I was led in, showed my lottery ticket to one of the tellers, and was led back to a private office. A few minutes later, a woman in a business suit came in with a sheath of papers. After everything was verified, I signed and claimed the 560 million dollars Jackpot. Of course, I decided on the lump sum which meant I only won about 360 million dollars. After taxes that ended up being just over 190 million dollars. I wasn’t worried about it though I had enough to get started.

Next, I stopped by Citibank and deposited 100 dollars to open an account with them. I spoke with the branch manager. After we talked he made a couple of calls, verified that I was the winner then made some more calls for me. We set up for all the winnings to be deposited into various accounts. He also contacted one of the best Legal firms in town and put one of their lawyers who handled retirement funds with an exceptional track record on retainer at 150% of his going rate. I was able to talk to him and let them know that as long as my capital kept increasing, he would always have a job working for me. 20 million dollars was put into an account in my father’s name. I also made sure that after taxes each year 1 million dollars would be deposited into their account from the profits of the 100 million dollars I was giving to him to invest. The rest was to be reinvested after a 2% bonus of the profits generated were paid to him as a bonus every year. The last 70 million dollars was put into an account for me which I was going to work the Stock Market with and invest in the future. Well, except for the 150,000 dollars I set aside to give Cindy as a 15,000 gift each year for the next 10 years. Why $15,000? Because that was the maximum gift you could give or receive without needing to pay taxes on it. As a friend of the family, I should be able to give her that gift without Loves claiming some employment rule prevents her from receiving it. If that happened, I’d have to start up one of my businesses sooner than I forecasted but that would be okay. Either way, Cindy, and her family would be set for life once I had everything up and running. I planned to hire her as a consultant and put her on a Salary of 130,000 dollars a year for doing absolutely nothing. It would be a pleasant surprise I’m sure. The Bank Manager helped me set up the gift to be a surprise, the job offer would come later. Now all I had to do was wait for the ‘up to 90 days’ it would take for the Lottery Headquarters to pay me.

When I was finished at the bank, I went back to the precinct and let Detective Rodriguez know that I won the Jackpot and had claimed my winnings. I told the Detective I wanted to head back to Clovis if he didn’t need me for anything. Detective Rodriguez thanked me for my time and let me know I was free to head home. I made sure to get that in writing before I left the precinct.

I had an uneventful trip back to Clovis and arrived home around 10 p.m. I heard the TV in the living room and went in to see mom and dad watching one of the new Amazon Prime shows. Reaching for the remote my dad paused the show and asked, “Son, what happened to your clothes?”

Figuring it was better to be fully honest, I said, “I was mugged in Albuquerque yesterday when I stopped by the Mega Millions Jackpot Lottery Headquarters. One of my muggers accidentally shot the other mugger and was killed by the mugger I’d thrown at him when he fell wrong and crushed his skull on the curb. The cops confiscated my clothes and gave me what I’m wearing.”

Johnathan’s father looked at his mother. His mother looked at his father and then said, “Seriously Johnathan, where are your clothes?” his mom asked. Which is exactly what I knew she was going to say. When the truth was not something my mother wanted to hear or wasn’t something she could not process, she always assumed I was lying.

“Seriously, Mom. Here is a copy of the police report,” I said, handing it to her. Turning to my father I continued, “Here is something for the both of you.” As I handed over a folder prepared by Citibank with my mother and father's account information and the estimated amount of money that would be deposited in their account in six to eight weeks with the annual deposit of an estimated million dollars each year. With my photographic memory providing that information to the Bank Manager without needing to contact my dad had been effortless. My mom looked over the police report while my dad looked through the documents I handed him. My dad pulled out his phone and activated his Citibank app, adding the account number from the paperwork in front of him to his accounts. He waited for the information to load and then reviewed it. My dad looked at his phone, then at me. My mom looked at the report she had and then at me. They did this a couple of times. When I was sure they couldn’t stand the silence anymore I started a mental countdown; “Three, two, one…” then smiled as both my parents started questioning me at once.