Consensus, Day 1-5: Toll

Mabel scratched her cheek absent-mindedly as her eyes glazed over. She was at a crossroads on her crossword puzzle, stuck at a four down.

They just keep putting all these new-fangled references to the tikky-tocks and the You tubes! Mabel thought as she scoffed amongst herself, a slight echo generating from the empty parking lot. Back in her day, she was the master at these little black and white boxes.

Of course, no one would’ve guessed that “her day” was the 1970s.

Pushing 65, she literally didn’t look a day over forty—and even then her beauty rivaled supermodels in their twenties. Despite this, Mabel seemed oblivious to her own stunning form. Sure, on her way to work she had gotten a wolf whistle or two. Even when she was a looker in the 80s, that never happened to her. It was also a bit strange when Mr. Carob suddenly took her complaints seriously, not immediately writing her off as a disposable company asset. Most of all, it was strange how these attitudes practically shifted overnight. Yesterday had been just as exhausting as the last thirty years of her life, why was today suddenly so different?

To be fair, it would take a genius to correctly guess that two altercations with Howard Grove was the inciting incident.

The truth was, Mabel didn’t care all that much. She had long since accepted that her life would never improve, that she’d be stuck working the same dead-end jobs until one day the end was finally met and she dropped dead. She had no family, no retirement plan, and no will.

She also unknowingly had insane beauty and enough strength to go toe to toe with an elephant. With her body’s newfound stamina and prowess, she’d easily live two hundred years even if she never crossed paths with Howard Grove ever again.

And then, Howard Grove’s car pulled up right next to Mabel’s toll booth—the last person in the entire office to leave.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Howard shouted from behind the glass. Mabel was tempted to just ignore him, but company policy stated she needed to scan his ticket before she could send him upon his less-than merry way.

Howard wasn’t going to take her lack of acknowledgment as an answer. “You’re the catalyst for all the trouble I’m in today! You spoke out to the boss, and now all of the sudden every easily-offended harlot thinks they can drum up some sort of exaggerated accusation against me!”

Mabel wanted nothing more than for Howard’s car to just move forward and leave her alone. She had filed a complaint to the boss nearly every other week for several years and now that Mr. Carob finally decided to give a shit it was her fault?

A burning resentment was building up within Mabel, though the feeling of warmth within her stomach was not just emotional stress.

She was gripping her crossword-solving pencil with a shaky hand, rage welling up within her fingers. For the briefest of moments, Mabel imagined this thin piece of wood and graphite as the similarly proportioned traffic gate. If some sort of event were to happen—one where Howard’s car could pass through without Mabel being penalized for not scanning his ticket—that would be just the break the poor toll booth operator needed.

She continued to apply more and more newtons of force to her pencil until—Snap! The wood was shattered into rhombular bits from just her thumb and finger.

That wasn’t the only lengthy piece of wood that had shattered, as Howard’s windshield was violently battered with wood chippings from what was once the traffic gate. Without anyone even  touching it, the massive barricade of solid birch had shattered beyond usability.

Good, that was the first part of what Mabel needed. A seemingly random event that could not be tied back to her. Howard being shocked into silence was only a bonus. Now, all she needed was for his godforsaken car to speed forward past the checkpoint, removing him from her area of interaction and—as a nice bonus—leaving him penalized in the eyes of the parking garage security cameras.

Two pieces of pencil were still firmly gripped within her hands, balanced precariously against one another due to their uneven angles. Her thumb pressed down on one of the wooden giblets, imagining it as Howard’s foot stepping upon the accelerator. In that very same breath, Howard’s care revved up as the gas pedal was suddenly thrust downwards at full force. The old man was forcefully brought from his shock as he frantically attempted to keep his car from crashing. He twisted his steering wheel back and forth as his car barrelled down the lot, nearly tipping over on sharp turns from the sheer inertia. Once he was on the road, he seemed to regain control of his battered car. Understandably, he didn’t attempt to return to the garage to pay for his fair.

And with that, Howard Grove was finally gone. Out of sight, out of mind.

Mabel sat back in her chair with a sense of satisfaction. For the first time in many, many years, a large smile was proudly etched upon her face. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she wasn’t about to question the will of the universe. To Mabel, it wasn’t latent reality manipulation burgeoning from her third encounter with Howard Grove, instead, it was simply an intervention by god.

She wasn’t even upset when she inevitably had to clean up the scattered remains of the traffic gate and file a report about the incident. It was a far more pleasurable experience than having to listen to a dump’s worth of garbage words spill out of Howard’s gullet.

Also, there seemed to be… less debris than she last remembered? As she bent down to sweep up a section of the wood chippings into a tiny dustpan, a brief lament passed her mind about still having about three more piles worth of remains lying about. But when she pivoted over to the other areas, the debris was just… missing. Gone as if it had vanished into thin air without a trace.

It was almost clicking together in Mabel’s mind that something was amiss. Almost. She didn’t really care to give it a second thought. What she really needed was a little push from a certain someone.

“So, I see you’re having fun with those powers of yours, hmm?” came a voice Mabel didn’t recognize from across the parking lot. Even though the woman in question was obscured in shadow, the toll booth lady did not verbally inquire about her presence, simply watching with guarded curiosity as they stepped into visibility. A delightful hourglass figure stepped into the light, the janitor’s outfit it adorned not dulling the tasteful curves and sizable breasts one bit.

“The name’s Christina. I’m just one of the many women who have been affected by some sort of curse placed on one Mr. Howard Grove.”

That got Mabel curious enough to respond. “Curse? Like the ones from the devil? What are you talking about, young lady?”

Christina remained confident in her speech, as if she knew every twist and turn this conversation would take going forward. A far cry from the nerdy loser who couldn’t even bear to talk to another human being who wasn’t her mom just this morning. “Trust me, I was as confused as you when I first realized this, but there’s simply no other way to explain it. Everytime we’re near Howard Grove, something about him changes us. Our bodies mold to better fit our deepest desires. It only seems to work on women and only when he’s angry out of his mind.”

“That second part sounds redundant,” Mabel responded, usually not one for jokes. She found the intriguing implications of Christina’s hypothesis to be worthy of an actual conversation—a rarity for the “elderly” woman these days.

Christina chuckled softly. “True, true. But I assure you, these details are important. I’ve been studying all the known subjects of this curse, and you and I seem to have been affected the most.”

“What are you trying to imply, Christina?” Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m implying that we should work together,” Christina replied, her voice becoming heady with desire. “We track Howard down and exploit his strange curse for all it’s worth. We could become goddesses amongst mere men. ”

Mabel didn’t seem to reciprocate the idea all too well. Even with her new superior intellect leagues beyond anyone else in the scientific field, Christina seemed to forget that underneath that gorgeous exterior that looked younger every hour, Mabel was still a 65 year old woman who probably lived through five different satanic panics.

“You’re all too keen to tempt yourself with devil magic, hmm?” the woman responded. “If God gave us this magic, he wouldn’t want us to abuse it. You scientist-types are all the same, always poking your nose where it never needed to be, ruining everything for the rest of us!”

“Excuse me?” Christina said, feeling insulted. She couldn’t believe the audacity of this toll booth lady, telling her off even after she had graced Mabel with life-changing news. Realizing this conversation would be going nowhere fast, she just rolled her eyes and turned around to leave.

“Ugh, whatever. Fine. I wanted to include you in on my grand ascension to goddesshood, but it looks like you’re still caught in the past, old lady.”

Suddenly, Christina felt the air around her shift in temperature, as if everything had just suddenly become ten degrees hotter. “What did you just say about me, little missy?” came Mabel’s restrained voice through her own teeth.

Christina’s powerful intellect immediately weighed her own options here, time briefly slowing around her as she did so. She had a killer retort planned, but was slightly wary of the idea that this conflict would further escalate into a fight. Well, if it did, I would surely win, Christina thought to herself, confident in her own abilities. Mabel may have superstrength equal to mine and reality manipulation that rivals my telekinesis, but I could easily outsmart this old geezer in a brawl. My brain almost certainly thinks twice as fast as hers. Besides, if I take her out now, she won’t inevitably stand in my way later.

With weighing the options out of the way, Christina’s lips spread into a smile as she looked over her shoulder dismissively. “I said, you’re no better than Howard Grove, you old bitch.”

As the furious scowl on Mabel’s face grew more and more severe, Christina could tell that this was going to get ugly fast. In a move of courtesy for both of them, Christina’s telekinesis quickly short-circuited all of the cameras in the vicinity, her eyes quickly scanning around to visually confirm that nothing would accidentally capture two superpowered beings duking it out.

she brought her eyes back to where Mabel was—except now, it was where Mabel once was. Before Christina could even glance about to find out where her older opponent had run off to, she was greeted to a splitting pain erupting from the side of her head. Somehow, Mabel had traveled 17 feet in a split second, punching Christina right in the face.

The scientifically-inclined girl was sent flying into a nearby massive concrete pillar, leaving a gorgeous crater within its stone. Christina was left more annoyed than injured, though the same could not be said for the crumbling column she just pulled herself out of.

“How’s that for an old bitch, huh?” Mabel spat at Christina, furious with rage. “You’re gonna tell me that Howard Grove is capable of that?”

Then, Mabel felt a presence within her mind. It started as what felt like a little spider scurrying around atop her brain matter before taking shape as a painful voice. “Howard Grove certainly isn’t capable of this, either.”

It was Christina’s voice, within Mabel’s own head. Each word was quiet, almost sultry in nature, yet the syllables struck the older woman’s brain like miniature scalpels, overloading her neurons. Mabel opened her eyes to see Christina looking back with a smirk, a perfectly sculpted index finger on her temple as she fired intrusive thought after intrusive thought into Mabel’s mind.

“Ugh, get out of my head!” Mabel screamed, clenching her teeth as the internal pain only worsened. Christina was betting on overloading the older woman’s brain until she either passed out or perished.

But then, Mabel’s reality-manipulating powers manifested the imagined idea of a spider as an actual spider, which she somehow plucked out of her head, promptly squishing it to pulpy guts between her fingers. Just like that, Christina’s mind-link to Mabel was gone, like spotty WiFi in a tunnel.

Mabel then used this momentary confusion on Christina’s part to retaliate. She mentally told herself that she “wanted this wannabe devil worshiper buried.” Just like that, massive slabs of concrete erected themselves around Christina, attempting to enclose themselves around her. This unusual Teepee-like burial was what Mabel imagined a “Wiccan burial” would look like, though she had no clue what the word Wiccan meant, nor did she know the practicers of the faith were not actually devil worshipers.

Regardless, reality contorted to her worldview, Christina only being spared from a horrific concrete-based suffocation by uprooting the slabs faster than they could bury her. Through a mix of telekinesis and raw strength, she yanked the spawning obelisks from the seemingly endless generation of concrete beneath her, chucking them at her opponent like frisbees.

Mabel dodged the first few before figuring out that she could just punch through the solid stone without any extra effort needed. She began to approach Christina, her fists busting through the slabs faster than Christina could throw them.

Seizing an opening, Christina leaped from her attempted enclosure—massive concrete tablet firmly in hand as if she were about to deliver that religious woman a new set of commandments.

Mabel then buried her fists into the ground one by one, imagining that when she pulled them out, they would be encased within stone boxing gloves—just as she had seen Popeye do in the cartoons she watched as a child. Sure enough, her wish was granted and Christina immediately found herself on defense as Mabel’s new boxing gloves tore through the scientist’s makeshift shield. Yet, Christina’s scientific mind did not falter under pressure. Holding another slab of concrete in front of her to stall for time, Christina used her telekinesis to snoop around in the nearby supply closet, quickly locating exactly what she needed. Her mind poured a certain liquid into two full buckets.

Once Mabel had broken through Christina’s defense and there were no more slabs to turn to, Mabel’s surefire victory was dissolved before her very eyes as two buckets of concrete & mortar dissolvent were poured from two telekinetically-held buckets onto her boxing gloves.

With both girls out of concrete gimmicks and within striking range, Christina’s brain immediately slowed time around her for a tactical advantage. Mabel may have been a slightly stronger foe with her seemingly limitless reality manipulation, but Christina’s brain simply thought faster.

The scientifically inclined girl performed a sweep kick, tripping up Mabel before the older woman could even comprehend what had happened. Christina then clasped her hands together and assisted gravity on ensuring that Mabel’s fall would be a painful one. Bringing her hands downward, she double-fist dunked Mabel into the stone.

But she didn’t stop there, Christina straddled Mabel, pummeling her face over and over again without letting up. Christina’s superior brain detected no area of opportunity where the older woman could possibly retaliate. This was it. This was the moment. She was going to win.

Then, from her mind’s left field, Mabel suddenly kneed Christina in the crotch. The older woman had only been pretending to be dazed and near-unconscious the entire time. Sure, Christina may have had the superior intellect, but Mabel had the lived experience. Back in her day, men were ruthless. A woman like her had no choice but to learn the ways of self-defense or she’d sooner end up dead.

Mabel then returned fire to the stunned Christina, unleashing the same barrage of punches upon her younger foe. Christina, unable to respond with a good counter, was rewarded with a concussion.

Then, silence.

“Well, credit where credit is due, young lady. You put up one hell of a fight,” Mabel said in-between heavy breaths, expressing a sense of begrudging respect to the half-conscious girl lying on the ground before her. She then dusted her hands of any debris and returned to her toll booth, locking up for the day.

Mabel looked around at the concrete carnage before closing her eyes. Upon opening them again, the parking lot had returned to its “normal” state—as normal as a cheap parking garage could be anyways.

When Christina finally returned to consciousness, the world was spinning, but her brain quickly repaired all of her ailments.

“So, Mabel’s got some tricks up her sleeve, huh? Well, we’ll see how long that lasts. Unlike her, I know what a GPS is. It’s only a matter of time before I find out where that Howard Grove lives and get a nice, juicy boost-up from him!”

End of Day 1.