Consensus, Day 3-2: Consequences

“I’m guessing these… don’t come in a bigger size, do they?” Violet asked sheepishly, holding a bra up in front of the stunned clerk.

Now why he was stunned, that could’ve been for any reason. The likeliest was that he had never seen a girl with as potent of “assets” as hers, the rippling musculature of her torso coupled with two twin hemispheres of nearly basketball-sized supple flesh protruding from her chest. Or perhaps that this girl’s face nearly rivaled Aphrodite in its beauty, not that the goddess would be able to do much about it. Or perhaps it was the fact that despite the former two facts she seemed more afraid to speak to him than he was to her.

Her sightline would have cleared his head were it not for her hunched back and protruded neck. Her musculature was that of a bodybuilder’s and yet her demeanor remained somewhat meek and timid. She was like an elephant—massive, could probably kill him just by stepping on him, and yet if a mouse crossed her path she would probably leap into the nearest arms of someone even if they had no chance of carrying her.

She twirled a finger through her luscious blonde mane, awaiting an answer that would never come. The man was simply too enraptured with her beauty to even consider a response to her simple question. His pupils ran laps in his eyes, tracing each and every inch of her flawless form again and again, unable to be fully satisfied with any sight upon seeing it just once.

Violet just sighed when she realized she wasn’t getting a response, her shoulders faltering even farther. “Aww shoot, this is the third time today and it’s only 9 in the morning.”

She liked the attention. It was nice being seen as something other than a mild nuisance to the general public—as her wheelchair-bound life before her often had been—but now it was beginning to feel as if the monkey’s paw had curled for Violet. Somehow, people were staring at her even more than they already had been!

“Geez, having eyes point at me whenever I run errands is becoming tiresome fast.” Violet whispered to herself as she often did to collect her thoughts. “I really wish I wouldn’t just attract more attention by running. If I could just blip to the grocery store right now, I—would?”

Before Violet even got the last word out of her mouth, she was at the entrance of the grocery store, several disgruntled customers both coming in and out clearly miffed that she was blocking the flow of traffic.

“C’mon lady! Don’t stop halfway through the door! Keep walking!” exclaimed a tired mother who now had to maneuver her child’s stroller around Violet. The buff, buxom blonde immediately obliged, frantically peeling off into an unpopulated corner near the shopping carts as she attempted to make sense of the sudden shift in location. She checked the time on her phone, the digital display marking “9:30” in its green hue. The wall clock nearby corroborated this time.

There was no other way to put it. Violet had jumped forward in time.

Admittedly, it wasn’t as impressive compared to when she had moved backwards in time, but it was still cool! Sure it wasn’t actual time she was saving, but being able to essentially forget the embarrassment she might’ve faced in an otherwise crippling social interaction was just what she needed!

“Anyways! Got to get groceries for when Zach arrives tomorrow!” she exclaimed, reorienting her focus for the task at hand. It was fun to goof off and save time in small increments, warping from one end of the isle to the other. She was giggling like a madwoman, but this time she wasn’t as bothered with the staring. She had the power of time on her side! If she wanted to undo some socially unacceptable act on her part, she had every right to.

Pushing her full cart into the shortest cashier line she could find, Violet had half a mind to skip time ahead to after the transaction was completed. But something caught her attention instead.

“Sir, you’ve got to flip the debit card around. The chip doesn’t go in the machine that way.” Spoke the tired cashier, clearly halfway through a slog of a shift and wanting nothing to do with the doddering old fool he was forced to ring up.

Wait, just who was that doddering old fool in front of her? The blonde’s mind was so preoccupied the world around her was like a blur.

“Pipe down you low-class lazyboy! I know what I’m doing. I shop here every week!”

Oh shit. It was Howard Grove.

All of his attention appeared to be dedicated to payment of his transaction—of which he was failing to complete as his card was now somehow more incorrectly oriented than it had been last time. No wonder this was the shortest line of them all. Violet couldn’t help but let out a sigh of discomfort, one that Grove’s selective ears picked up on.

“Oh great, you’re that next-door trollop, here to attack me again just like you did two days ago!”

“What!? No! I didn’t attack you, you attacked me! And stop calling me that word, I don’t even know what it means!”

What Violet really wanted was to reverse time back to before this interaction had even been initiated, but that wasn’t happening. Instead, it was as if she were given more options as to where she could travel throughout time without merely obeying her vague gestures as to where she wanted to go.

Howard Grove continued to rant and rave, but his complaints fell on deaf ears as Violet found herself navigating a mind-menu of every notable moment of her life to travel to. Her powers were improving, as was her body, continuing to fill out her already-strained top.

Violet looked like a kid at a birthday party as she unwrapped presents in the form of pasts and futures. She zipped back to her time in seventh grade when she got her first kiss. Then far, far into the future where… huh?

The world was on fire, a lone, endlessly tall tower stood above the harrowing flames, stretching far into the hazy orange skyline. Thick, black clouds choked the sky, circling around the silhouetted structure as if they knew their place second to its haunting stature. Corpses littered the ground, charred beyond recognizability, only the vague shapes of limbs and skulls remaining.

Yeah, for the far future this isn’t really all that surprising, Violet thought to herself, not bothering to check just how far off the date was from her present. She already had enough anxiety about climate change as it was.

Violet returned to the present, as the matter with Howard Grove was far more important to her. While she was zoned out, Howard Grove’s fury had drawn the ire of several passer-bys, as apparently in his rage he had knocked over a stand of tabloid magazines.

“Hey now, what’s going on here!?” asked a passing police officer overhearing the commotion.

Howard may have been a stubborn idiot, but even he was smart enough to placate a police officer. He’d do everything in his power to spin this situation into one where he was the victim and Violet was the aggressor.

The last thing she’d want is for Zach’s arrival to be ruined by her asshole of a neighbor. In fact… Now was her chance to really make sure this horrid old man was placed where he belonged. She thought back to his previous rambles, wondering how she could manipulate the past in such a way that it would change the currently unfolding present as it occurred right in front of her.

The world around her seemed… looser now. As if instead of a mere left and right view of time as a whole, it was instead a 3D mesh of every available entity that ever was, with an ability to modify each individual second of time specific to their own existences.

Violet reached out with an invisible hand of choice, specifically selecting Howard Grove’s brain. She rewound the neurons to specific points in rapid succession, trusting in her hyper-competent cortex to figure out the minutiae of the process.

“Officer, that woman right there …Did… …nothing… …wrong…” his voice stuttered as his brain jumped around in time, force-fired synapses from previous conversations sentence-mixing his words. “She… …is not… …the perpetrator!... I am… …the perpetrator! …I assaulted… …her…

The cop raised a lone eyebrow, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and wasted no time in slapping cuffs on Howard. “Alright then, you're under arrest. Let's come down to the station then. I wanna ask you a few questions.”

Howard attempted to respond, but Violet held his brain in a point in time where his mouth wasn’t running—a surprisingly hard moment to find. He squirmed and spasmed like a mime, but ultimately, Violet’s goal was achieved as Howard’s head was lowered into the police car outside. Mr. Grove was taken out of the picture without killing him or even harming him physically. Zach’s visit would go off without a hitch now!

…Except the cashier was too busy staring at her to scan even a single item of hers, even as the conveyor belt slowly built up a small pile of them in front of his register.

She sighed. Damn, I knew I should have gone to self checkout!

~

“Ms. Atelier! Ms. Atelier!” Came the shrieking voice of an intern as he bolted down the hallway. He found his body slowing down as a natural consequence of poor cardio, and yet as he neared the last stretch he found some strange force gripping each of his limbs like a marionette. A voice called into his ear, soothing him, lulling him into trusting it instead of the aching screams of his overworked joints.

Needless to say, Christina was getting the hang of incorporating what was formerly Carrie’s powerset into her own. A sultry voice of encouragement in one’s ear did wonders in improving her telekinetic takeover of one’s body. Her prowess extended even to those she couldn’t see—the mere pathetic pants of her hired intern allowing her to manipulate his every movement to her advantage without a sight line.

He collapsed upon entering her office, his body pushed to a limit beyond limits now working over-overtime just to pump oxygen into his brain. That simply would not do.

“Get up. I didn’t have you running errands all day just so you could fall asleep at the most crucial moment.”

His body stirred, shaking hands pulling his sopping form off of the floor into a pale imitation of a presentable stance. His papers were scattered about the floor, files full of printed photos from various espionage endeavors on those Christina deemed important. But none of that mattered, she could tell he had some important verbal information. Call it a scientist’s hunch.

“Speak, or I will make you speak for me,” her voice commanded, startling the intern into a spine-straightening stance. Even though he and the rest of the office was thoroughly under her verbal control, her sheer commanding presence was enough to frighten a new level of obedience into his heart.

“It’s, *huff* Howard Grove, *cough* ma’am!”

That immediately changed her tone. She hadn’t heard any news about him or his whereabouts all morning. “Do you know where he is? Spit it out, subordinate!”

“He’s *huff* in the local *wheeze* prison! Currently awaiting trial!”

“Ah, looks like the law finally caught up to the old fool. Well, that simply won’t do. The only prison he deserves to be in is this office building.”

She stood up from her desk, the chair underneath her rear ejecting itself into the nearest wall. Christina’s legs buckled briefly, as if her own body was struggling to contain the overwhelming power hidden within it. And yet, she only allowed the mask to slip for but a moment.

She had a job to do. A reputation to uphold. Most importantly, she had an empire to craft. One she was so very close to achieving.

“What shall we do, Ms. Atelier? Post bail?”

“Your time for speaking is over, knave,” Christina replied more coldly than usual. The mailwoman escaping from her clutches out of sheer convenience frustrated her. She had confided in those beneath her to restrain her prey, and they had failed her.

“No, today I will be going to the county prison and paying Howard Grove a visit myself.”