Chapter 2: Making the List
POV: Thomas Carter
Three days of living in the Person of Interest universe, and Tom still feels like an actor who's forgotten his lines.
The consulting firm where Thomas Carter works exists in gleaming reality—glass towers and humming servers and coworkers who greet him with easy familiarity. His hands know the keyboard shortcuts, his mind navigates database structures with muscle memory that isn't quite his own. The implanted memories guide him through meetings and project deadlines like a GPS system for someone else's life.
But tonight, alone in his apartment with the city breathing beyond the windows, Tom needs answers about what he's become.
"Nano, show me what we can do. Start with speed."
The response arrives as text across his vision, clean and efficient:
[SPEED ENHANCEMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED. DURATION: ESTIMATED 20 MINUTES. CALORIC COST: SIGNIFICANT.]
Central Park at 3 AM is a different creature than its daytime self. Shadows pool between trees like spilled ink, and the only witnesses are rats and insomniacs too lost in their own darkness to care about one more crazy person talking to himself.
Tom stands on a deserted path, heart hammering with anticipation and terror in equal measure. The enhancement kicks in like a switch being flipped, and suddenly the world... shifts.
His first step sends him rocketing forward with impossible momentum. Trees blur into abstract streaks of green and brown. His feet barely touch the ground, each stride eating up distances that should require a car. The sensation is intoxicating and horrifying—like being shot from a cannon while maintaining perfect control.
Numbers flash across his vision: 35 mph, 40 mph, 42 mph. Speed that would kill a normal human through sheer impact with the air, but the nanobots cushion his body against physics itself.
He stops after twelve minutes, gasping, hands on his knees as the enhancement fades and normal time reasserts itself. His legs shake with exhaustion and adrenaline, but his mind reels with possibilities.
"That was... holy shit."
Next test. A metal railing separates the path from a small pond, the kind of decorative barrier that's meant to look substantial while being purely ornamental. Tom grips it with both hands, feeling the cool metal against his palms.
"Nano, strength now."
[STRENGTH PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
The change is subtler than speed—a warmth spreading through his muscles, a sense of coiled power waiting to be unleashed. Tom squeezes.
The metal railing bends like aluminum foil.
"Shit!" He jerks his hands back, staring at the twisted metal in horror. "I broke park property!"
Panic floods his system as he looks around for witnesses, for cameras, for any sign that someone might have seen a mild-mannered IT consultant casually deform city infrastructure. Twenty minutes of frantic work mostly restores the railing's shape, but it still looks like vandalism rather than superhuman strength.
The realization hits him as he stumbles home, legs shaking with exhaustion: abilities are real, powerful, but they have costs. His stomach gnaws at him with a hunger that feels bottomless, and by the time he reaches his apartment, he's devoured six convenience store meals and still wants more.
[HEALING REQUIRES RAW MATERIALS,] Nano explains as Tom stares at his empty refrigerator the next morning. [CELLULAR REGENERATION DEMANDS CALORIES, PROTEINS, MINERALS. SIGNIFICANT INJURIES WILL REQUIRE MASSIVE NUTRITIONAL INTAKE.]
Tom has tested this too, with a shallow cut on his forearm that he watches knit together over three hours. The healing is real, visible, magical—but it comes with a price that makes his grocery bills triple overnight.
"So I'm a superhero who needs a Costco membership. Great."
But the humor can't quite mask the deeper implications. He's not just Thomas Carter anymore. He's something else, something enhanced, something that could tip the balance in a world where good people die because normal humans can't move fast enough or hit hard enough when it matters.
The question is how to use these gifts without exposing them—and how to make contact with the people who need them most.
The answer comes to him while reviewing database security protocols at work, watching lines of code scroll past that represent real money, real companies, real lives. He knows how The Machine identifies its numbers: patterns suggesting danger, unusual behavior, connections to crimes that haven't happened yet.
His plan crystallizes with the cold clarity of desperation: make himself a number.
Tom spends a week carefully documenting what he finds in his own company's systems. The fraud is real—three executives skimming millions through a web of shell companies and creative accounting. Part of him feels the detective's thrill of uncovering truth, but fear war with excitement as he realizes what reporting this will make him.
A target.
"This is real crime," he whispers to Nano as encrypted files reveal the scope of the theft. "These people are actually stealing."
[AFFIRMATIVE. PROCEEDING WITH WHISTLEBLOWER PROTOCOL WILL RESULT IN HOSTILE RESPONSE FROM SUBJECTS.]
Tom's finger hovers over the send button for his anonymous SEC tip. The evidence is overwhelming, his analysis thorough enough to show off his technical skills without revealing anything supernatural. But once this email sends, people with millions of dollars and criminal connections will want him dead.
"If I do this, people might try to kill me. Actually kill me. Not TV show pretend."
[CORRECT. PROCEED?]
He thinks of Harold Finch somewhere in this city, building his operation in shadows and silence. John Reese drinking himself into oblivion, waiting for someone to give his broken life meaning. The Machine watching, calculating, preparing to judge human worth through algorithms and probability.
They're out there. They're real. And soon, if Tom is right about how this works, they'll notice a pattern: whistleblower plus corporate criminals equals potential victim.
His social security number will print on a piece of paper in an abandoned library, and Harold Finch will start investigating Thomas Carter.
"Yeah. Proceed. Let's get on that list."
The email sends with a soft whoosh.
Tom stares at the screen, hands shaking slightly as the weight of his decision settles around him like a shroud. In 48 to 72 hours, his tip will reach SEC investigators. Within a week, his name will be known to people who've stolen millions and killed to protect less.
And if he's right about how The Machine works—if he's correctly understood the patterns he's watched play out across five seasons—then somewhere in the city, an artificial super-intelligence is already calculating the probability that Thomas Carter will need help.
"No going back now," he whispers.
[SURVEILLANCE OF YOUR APARTMENT DETECTED. UNKNOWN PARTY.]
Tom's blood turns to ice water in his veins. "Already? That was fast."
[RECOMMEND INCREASED CAUTION. YOUR PLAN IS PROCEEDING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE.]
Tom laughs nervously, the sound hollow in his apartment's silence. Outside, New York pulses with eight million lives, most of them unaware that somewhere among them, a man who shouldn't exist has just painted a target on his own back.
"Welcome to my life, Nano. Population: us."
But as surveillance teams take position and corporate executives realize their crimes have been exposed, Tom feels something he hasn't experienced since waking in this impossible world: purpose.
He's no longer just Thomas Carter, IT consultant, living someone else's life. He's a number now, a person in danger, someone who needs The Machine's help.
And soon, very soon, he'll meet the people he's watched save countless lives.
The thought terrifies and exhilarates him in equal measure.
Time to see if Harold Finch and John Reese are everything he's hoped they would be.
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