[h1][img]http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah281/Q-C0ntinuum/Jack%20Skidder%20QM_zpsn2d85bfb.jpg[/img] Jack Skidder (?)[/h1]
[h2]Jack Skidder[/h2]
Blink.

Jack took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before freeing it again.

The night was just cold enough that he could see the cloud of exhalation. He looked deep into it and concentrated on excluding any extraneous sensory inputs.

He'd begun to understand that if he kept his head in the moment and concentrated only on the things he was feeling—sensing--he'd get an almost four-dimensional image of how reality would unfold.

In his mind's eye he “saw” the tendrils of an oddly shaped spiderweb. It wasn't symmetrically round, cone shaped, or even square, but constantly warped as though the prey it had snared were almost able to escape one by one.

The mosquitoes fought hardest of all.

Mentally, Jack gently plucked one of the gossamer strands. Its recoil was like a note that traveled through multiple dimensions of time—not just forward and back, but along the same axes as reality itself, insulating and distorting its harmonics—and touched the very edges of the world like electrons caught in quantum entanglement.

Somehow, spider aside, this web was alive, and Skid Row Jack had to figure out which strand to pluck, how hard, and when to release. “If I had a few more of me we could put together a band,” he mused.

But when the music of that one-note chord died, Jack saw its effect. A car on the east end of town developed a spontaneous flat tire from a nail that had somehow lodged itself underneath. Just as one annoying little gnat had broken away from the web.

It was a good thing it had only been pulling out of a parking space.

Jack realized he'd gone mentally blank for a few seconds and then realized he'd dropped a set of keys he'd been holding ever since he'd come outside to start his own car.

He looked at his hand and gasped as he perceived the face of the spider staring back at him.

It was himself.