FAIL - First Attempt In Learning!

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The news media got it so wrong!

According to the news reports, a person dressed in a silver-gray suit of some kind easily disarmed and subdued the six men inside the bank with no loss of life to anyone, and no harm to the hostages then vanished.

That was so not the case!

I felt like a bumbling idiot, and I am not sure I looked any different.

Once the suit was active, I climbed the nearest building by the side facing the alley so as to hide myself as much as possible from anyone who might be around. Once on the roof, I moved over toward the edge, crouched down, and looked at the bank, which was now several blocks away. My eyesight locked in again and I could see the masked men moving about inside; five of them watching windows and exits, while one was talking on a phone. The one on the phone was disturbingly calm, while the negotiator outside was seeming to be more and more worked up and concerned.

*Your hearing should allow you to hear what they are saying, if you can sort it out from all the other noise around us.*

Following Becky's advice, I focused on the two men talking and thought about trying to hear them. This was not something I had practiced before, but I figured it was just a matter of thinking about what I wanted to do.

Yeah, not quite.

My ears were suddenly pummeled with the loudest sounds I had ever heard! I staggered backward clutching at my head, before dropping to my knees as I all but clawed at my ears to make the horrific cacophony of sounds attacking my ears stop. I heard voices, so many voices, car engines, horns honking, phones ringing and vibrating, birds squaking, all as if I was right next to everything and they were yelling at the top of their lungs. It was one of the worst hearing experiences ever!

*Focus! Filter out the other sounds! Focus on who you want to hear!* Becky's voice sliced through the riot of sound.

Focus, had to focus.

Focus.

I dragged myself back to the edge of the building and looked down toward the negotiator. I focused on him, wanting only to hear his voice, his sound. I only wanted to hear him, only him.

Slowly, over what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or two, the assault on my ears faded, though my ears still rang, and I started to hear the negotiator over everything else. Once I knew it was him, it became easier to filter out everything else and just hear his voice.

"....yes, I know what your demands are, but you have to understand that what you want takes time ....."

"You have 10 minutes, Mr. Negotiator. 10 minutes. If our demands are not met in one hour, we will kill everyone. After all, you and I both know you are waiting for a SWAT team to arrive and be ready to attack us. We will not be stopped. The jihad has come!"

The voice had an accent I could not place. It was like the person was trying to sound like they had an Arabic accent, but they were not doing it right. As a teacher, I had had several students from the Middle East, and I knew what an accent from that part of the world sounded like. What this guy was doing was not it.

Question for another time.

10 minutes was not much time!

"We have to move now," I muttered to my internal companion.

*Are you sure about this, Jonathan?*

I nodded my head. 

"You gave me all of these abilities, Becky. How can I sit by if you gave me the power to stop something like this?"

*What I provided for you was for OUR protection, not for you to play hero and draw attention to us!*

I squatted down behind the crenel of the roof, "Really? Because you said you value life, and then you gave me what amounts to superpowers. What did you think would happen? You said you did a check of my mental state. If you did that, you knew, you KNEW doing what you did to me would result in this happening at some point, but you did it anyway. Why?"

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