The Search Begins

Davner looked at the Tuner and asked.

“What do you mean by consequence and placement? Why would we look for consequences?” The Tuner paused for a moment before speaking, he leaned out of his seat on the train and into the aisle.

“I’ll explain in a moment. For now, I think we should ask ourselves the important question. Why is there no one else in this train car?” The Tuner asked, leaning back into his seat. Davner stretched to see over the seat in front of him and looked out over the train car. Every single seat was empty and the very front was a mess of thrown about luggage. Davner’s stomach dropped.

“Come on.” The Tuner said, slipping out of his seat and crouching as he walked down the aisle. Davner followed, though not a smoothly as the Tuner. They made their way to the front of the car, passing rows and rows of empty seats. As they moved further Davner had to step over bags that had been haphazardly tossed around the car. Suitcases lay open over seats, their contents spilling out all over.

The Tuner made it to the door and he carefully stood to look out the window over to the other car. He quickly ducked back down, a small smile on his face. Davner scrambled over, slowly rising to the window and looked out to the other car. In the other car Davner saw dozens of people crouching together in the seats. The car was extremely over crowded and most of the occupants looked rather terrified. In the center aisle four men with masks over their face and revolvers in their hands paced up and down, steadily watching their hostages. Davner quickly ducked back out view as the Tuner had.

“Now Chance,” The Tuner said, addressing him. “Before we do anything rash, why don’t you give us our chances of finding another Turner?”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Davner asked.

“Use the dial.” The Tuner said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Davner timidly reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the large, flat object. Davner studied the blood smeared dial. It was gold on the outside, with that glossy, colorful face but Davner also noticed that is had a series of tiny ebony numbers around the face’s edge. The numbers ran from one to six hundred and sixteen. The dial had one hand and it rested in the small space between the largest and smallest numbers.

“And how does the dial work?” Davner prodded the Tuner.

“Just think these exact words ‘What are are chances of finding another Turner?’ and see what happens.” Davner followed his instructions, focusing as hard as he could on the man’s words. Davner gasped as he watched the hand move from the space at the top to the number four hundred and twenty two. The Tuner leaned over to see the dial's face and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Davner asked.

“It would be nice if it were higher, don’t you think?” The Tuner said offhandedly.

“I guess.” Davner replied.

“So why don’t you make it higher?” The Tuner asked.

“What? I can’t do that!”

“Oh, but you can. You’re a Turner after all.”

“And what is a Turner?” Davner demanded.

“The Turners are a group of six men and women who control one of the six forces that control everything.” The Tuner responded. “ And when I say everything I mean everything. You control Chance or Probability. Why don’t you name me something that isn’t controlled in some part by Chance?” Davner thought for a moment and realized the Tuner was right, in theory anyway. Is some way, even if it was very small, all things were effected and to some level controlled by probability.

“Hello?” The Tuner said, snapping his fingers in front of Davner. “Once you’re done with your nap maybe we can get to . . . finding the other Turner?” He said, exasperation bleeding into his voice.

“Alright. So what first?” Davner asked.

“Well first, you should turn that little nob to something around five hundred and ten or so. Second, we need to get to the other side of that car.”

“How are we supposed to get past the bandits?” Davner asked while turning his dial to the Tuners specifications.

“For starters we’re going to open the door, then you can see what it’s like.” The Tuner said, standing.

“What what’s like?”

“What it’s like controlling everything.” The Tuner said. A moment later he opened the door to the train car, wind rushed in and all the sounds that had become background noise suddenly pummeled at Davner. After that the Tuner moved to the other car door in one jump, as he half crashed into the other door frame he caught the attention of the bandits inside.