maskormenacelogs | can you solve the riddle?

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can you solve the riddle?

WHO: Jonas Kahnwald & Conner Kent
WHERE: The desert outside Jeopardy
WHEN: Shortly after this
WHAT: Conner attempts to kill Jonas at his invitation.
WARNINGS: Well, it is an elaborate suicide attempt.

Jonas begins his journey toward death by walking, following the road out of town on foot for about a half hour before the heat becomes unbearable. It takes a bit longer to find someone willing to pick up a dusty hitchhiker. The car that stops for him evidently only does so because the driver recognizes him as an imPort, though her enthusiasm quickly fades when he spends most of the ride in silence, answering questions in one or two clipped words.

He asks to be dropped off after fifteen minutes, which has already put them in a remote stretch of wilderness. Jonas rewards his driver with an autograph, then sets off into the bush and doesn't stop until he can no longer spot the highway behind him.

Then he turns his face toward the sky and calls, "Conner?"

Did he mean it when he said he'd be able to hear it?

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Somewhere high up, Conner was sipping his water from his bottle when he heard the word, a simple name, and he smiled. Setting the bottle back in his belt, he oriented on the sound. He could hear anything, really, if he tried, but he trained himself to hear his name, and to see if it was about him. But he knew this voice, and knew this name. And as he focused in, he saw Jonas.

He was still feeling odd about this ask. About this question. But he also believed that people should have a right to go out as they pleased. Was this bad? Maybe. Did this make him insensitive? Maybe. But he had only his own thoughts on it, and so he decided to do it.

With a whoop, he shot downward, picking up speed as he went, and from thousands of miles away, it was less than a second before he appeared above Jonas, and called down as he slowly sank through the air.

"Hello, Jonas."

Jonas blinks in surprise. He's gotten adjusted to the use of portals, but movement too fast for the eye to register is still jarring for him. It takes a second or two before he convinces himself he's not hallucinating, and then another moment to work through the unsettling confirmation that Conner could truly hear him speak across hundreds or thousands of kilometers.

"Does this seem like a good spot?" he asks when he's finally gathered himself. As far out as he's wandered, he's not entirely sure he hasn't underestimated Conner's power.

"Depends on what you want to try, first. This is bound to get odd, but depending on how this works it could go quick."

He lands next to the other man and nods.

"What do you want to try?" He is unsure how this will fall out.

"Also, I hate to ask this, but I need you to write out that this is your will and idea. Apparently, when Imports die, the government knows and sends a team immediately."

"The proof is already in our messages," Jonas points out.

He retrieves his device, anyway, and records a brief video: "I am Jonas Kahnwald. I've asked Conner Kent to help me test the limit of my powers. In the event of a fatal accident, he should not be charged for a crime. My emergency contact is Rupert Hentzau. If I don't return, he can inherit my belongings."

That done, he switches off the device and offers it to Conner. It won't be very useful to either of them if it ends up destroyed in the process of killing Jonas. "How do you usually kill someone?" he muses. "We can start with that."

"Usually, its in a battle, and at the end of a rough g=fgiht, with a whole lot of punching. But most of my opponents are supertough." He rubs his chin.

"I could attempt to hit you hard enough to do that sort of damage. And then we can go from there?"

This was so weird, but even so, he was curious as to how this other man's powers worked. He was probably an idiot for doing this, but... why not?

He stepped closer to the other man and nodded, "Ready when you are."

Jonas will never be ready. If this were a fight, he'd be losing it. He's an undernourished runt of a boy and his survival skills depend entirely upon his speed and his cleverness. They haven't even started yet and he's already itching to run away.

He takes a breath and imagines what it must feel like to take a blow that's severe enough to be fatal. Does he die slowly of internal bleeding? Does he die immediately of brain damage? Does he fail to die at all, but spend the next six months in a coma?

Bracing himself, he squares his shoulders and balls his shaking hands into fists, willing himself to hold still. He gives Conner a jerked little nod.

"Okay. Go."

"Right."

And Superboy is wary, worried, and completely unsure of how this will work. And so as the other says go, he is already launching a punch, lunging forward, eyes wide, looking for anything that might happen differently.

If all was equal, there was no reason that Jonas would walk away alive.

But all was not equal...

Jonas flinches and squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for an impact that never lands.

It doesn't land, because the sand beneath their feet shifts just so, and Jonas wobbles in one direction, and Conner fumbles a bit in the other. The fist goes soaring past Jonas's head and he gets shoulder-checked, instead.

It's enough to send him flying, landing hard on his back in the dirt and knocking the wind out of him. But he's not dead.

Superboy stumbles, startled as he somehow, beyond reason, misses. "What the hell?"

he lands, tumbling, and slides to a stop, looking back at Jonas.

"You have powers of some kind that did that, don't you?" He has dealt with probability villains before.

Jonas still needs a moment, coughing and sucking in an agonized gasp of air. He's not even entirely sure he hasn't broken several ribs at first, until some of the pain begins to fade. Only when he's sure he won't do himself more damage does he stagger back to his feet.

"I..."

It certainly doesn't feel like a power, though he'd seen it listed among his traits on his paperwork when he arrived.

"It's my self-consistency. The thing we're trying to break."

Conner facepalms. "This place turned it into a power. No wonder it's being hard to break."

He sighs. "Doesn't mean we can't beat it, but it may take some trickery."

With no warning, Conner spun, and his eyes blazed and out oft hem came fiery beams that were as hot as a sun, shooting oward Jonas faster than any normal mortal would have been able to move... If they hit, he would have been dead instantly.

If they hit...

What does it mean to be faster than someone who can control time?

Not that Jonas intends to do it. He doesn't understand what he's looking at, or what's about to be done to him. He only knows that he's no longer standing in front of Conner. Or rather, he is standing in front of Conner, but also standing behind him, hearing the words, "...it may take some trickery," all over again.

The Jonas in front of Conner catches sight of the Jonas behind him, a brief flicker of confusion in his eyes. Then Conner unleashes a burst of light, and there's once again only a single Jonas: the one behind him.

Conner stares, then looks around, and blinks at the second Jonas.

"Now that is a neat trick." He shakes his head. "Teleportation of some kind? Or probability?"

he rubs his face. "HMmm."

"I'm sorry," Jonas says, because apologizing for surviving a deadly laser attack just seems like the proper thing to do in this situation. It must be very frustrating. "I don't know why that happened."

"You're not doing anything wrong. Your power is sneaky."

He shakes his head.

"It is possible that the power is completely unconscious, and nio matter what you want consciously, our subconscious generally wants to survive. Or so Psych 101 taught me."

He squints. "I am unsure how to overcome that."

Jonas can't deny it. Even if his mentor hadn't spent the past year proving to him that his survival is necessary for the good of humanity, the truth is, Jonas doesn't want to die. He's absolutely terrified of it. It's just that the only thing that terrifies him more than his death is his future.

"Maybe if..." Oh, the idea itself is making Jonas feel dizzy with anxiety. This is going to hurt so bad. "Maybe if you start small and build from there. You know, do things that wouldn't kill me, but do a lot of them, so maybe there's too much for me to survive by the end of it."

Conner sighs. "I dunno. I don't want to hurt you, if that makes any sense, and most things that would add up to kill you... I'm sorry, but in an odd way, that is a step too far."

it was one thing to try to kill someone at their request, but the other was too close to torture, and Conner has enough sin on his soul to not want that, too.

Is he giving up already? Jonas starts to protest, then quiets, reconsidering. He doesn't want to make Conner do something he doesn't want to do. The very last thing he wants is to thrust his burden onto someone else, and if this leaves Conner feeling guilty or haunted, Jonas is better off finding another person for the task.

But... they're already here.

"Would it help if I told you all the reasons I deserve it?"

Conner scrubs his face in frustration.

"Look. I'll keep trying to find ways to help you, but I am not going to commit torture, even at your request. In the end, all we have is our selves, and our own self-respect. I may help someone take their own life, but I will not, absolutely not, help someone torture themselves."

Conner shook his head emphatically.

"What did your file say about your powers?"

Jonas can't help but think this conversation would go a lot easier if Conner had met his future self. No one feels bad about going back in time to kill the bad guy once they've met the bad guy.

He sighs. Alright. He won't push that idea any further.

"This is hard to explain in plain English," he says. Actually, it's hard to explain in English at all, but he doesn't trust the nanite translation. He'd rather not misrepresent the concepts.

"I'm a time traveler. I control causality and I travel through a wormhole when I want to go far in time. I've met my future self, in my world, which is why I have self-consistency."

He reaches up, pointing to the noose burn on his throat.

"You see this? This is from before. They tried to execute me, but of course I couldn't die, because my future self is still alive. That's what self-consistency means. This is a different world, now, so I want to get around it."

"I understand. And I do get it, but I also would not kill young Hitler if I had a chance. Sorry, but that isn't a good argument."

He holds up a hand. "I'm still here to try to help you, but I will not commit torture, either accept that, or I go home."

There is only so far you can push Conner and he is getting annoyed.

Jonas can see that.

"I'm sorry," he utters softly. "I made a mistake. I think I should find someone else to do this."

There must be plenty of people in the world who would delight in killing Hitler as a baby.

Conner sighs, then nods.

"I'm sorry for wasting yhour time. But... one piece of advice. Be careful out there. And if you ever need my help, for anything else... call my name. I'll come."

he offers his hand, feeling guilty, but also sure of himself. Sometimes, things just don't work out.

Jonas has yet to encounter a situation that worked out for him. He doesn't blame Conner. His self-consistency was probably going to kick in one way or another. Why not in the form of morality?

"Thank you," he says, shaking Conner's hand. But Jonas has no intention of asking anything more of him.

"Good Luck."

And Conner rises, up and up and up. He needs some time to think. And distance. To the moon then. With a flash of light, he is gone.

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