EIGHTY-FIVE: The Other Half of It

85

Boe is all right. Boe is here on Anesidora. Boe is…an empath.

The thoughts flowed through his head again as he dashed toward a wall made of the tough, rubbery material that formed all the impediments on the North of North gym’s morphable obstacle course. The course was popular, and even at Alden’s level, they never let more than three people use the room at the same time. So this slot had been booked days ago.

Glad I didn’t skip. Bobby would have killed me.

The trainer was standing off to the side, adjusting the obstacles ahead of him slightly every time he ran it. The blocks and bars were never quite the same distance apart. The walls were never the same height. Occasionally something would be unexpectedly loose or wobbly, and he’d have to change tactics. There were even sections where puddles of water could appear only to be quickly dried before his next run, though Bobby never made use of those.

Alden popped up the wall. It was narrower than it had been last time, and the second obstacle he was supposed to be scaling from here—a pillar—now had a series of vertical and diagonal ridges and crevices instead of the horizontal ones that had made the job simple enough last time.

He glanced toward her. She probably thinks I’m not paying attention today.

It was true. It was only willpower that was keeping him from trying to sneakily research U-types through his interface while he did this. That and the fact that he didn’t have two consciousnesses, so he was sure he would plow face first into something.

“I’m not sure I can climb that!”

Bobby gave him a thumbs-up. She was wearing a striped yellow and black tank top and a bobble antenna headband. Even though Halloween was still officially a couple of days away, a lot of places were treating everyone to Halloweek. Including the gym.

Anesidora took a more-is-more approach to holidays. If it was celebrated anywhere on Earth and it was even moderately fun, chances were it would be honored on the island.

“Give it a try!” she called back. “Remember your handholds.”

A minute later, Alden hit the floor, which had gone soft enough that it wasn’t painful. He accepted a hand up from Bumblebee Bobby. “Almost!” she said. “We need to work more on your climbing technique. Underbars next!”

When his workout was over and they had talked about how to adjust his schedule to fit around his new classes and the school gym period that was starting up next week, Alden headed to the showers. He rinsed off under a full rainfall ceiling while New Age music played, and then he dried with a heated towel that had been folded around a pouch of lavender.

This place is too expensive. And I know it. But they do make you feel good about giving them your money.

He never knew what to do with the lavender pouches. If you handed them back to a bathroom attendant, they just threw them away. He’d been keeping them all and tucking them into his sock drawer.

He needed to kill a few more hours, so he sat at the smoothie bar, drinking something that definitely had too much maple syrup in it to actually be healthy, and did his homework. To say he wasn’t into it would have been an understatement. He hadn’t even brought his bag with him when he raced out of the apartment, so he had to do it all through the interface instead of on his computer or tablet.

He skimmed the science reading, then he watched an episode of a show that featured two Artonan farmers arguing over the ownership of a livestock animal that looked like a jumbo mole cricket. It seemed to be part of a historical comedy series about the farmers. Their argument got more and more ridiculous as the show progressed, until by the end of it, the animal got fed up with them and left both farms behind to go live its life in the wild. Where it was almost immediately killed an eaten by a poacher lady.

Not bad, Alden decided. For me. But I wonder if the people who were struggling to describe the weather today are going to be all right?

The banter between the farmers was fast-paced and full of childish insults that probably weren’t frequently encountered unless you lived with a little girl who thought it was hilarious to hear an Avowed call the household appliances things like “ugly butt.” If you were listening without translation, like they were supposed to, wouldn’t it be difficult for people who weren’t used to it?

Instructor Rao did make me recite a poem even though it was my first day of class. Is she a hardass or is she just phoning it in?

He put extra effort into typing up what the moral of the story was so that he could record himself reading the whole thing later and send it to Kibby.

“This is what my class is watching,” he would say. “Since you’re my first Instructor, I wanted your opinion on my work if you can spare me your valuable time.”

She was going to love it.

Finally, he typed up two paragraphs for Instructor Marion’s class about the domestic violence/terrorist situation, feeling ill at ease with the questions it provoked. And with the fact that he lacked the passion and confidence in his own judgment that his new classmates had displayed.

Most of them were really sure that it would be no big deal for them to do the right thing, whatever they thought that was. Even the ones who had incredibly dangerous plans had a lot of conviction about them.

He grimaced down at the dregs of his smoothie and sent the homework in to Instructor Marion. Then he turned his attention to Boe.

He checked the time.

My empath friend needs at least two more hours to get his skill online so he can not be an empath. Maybe even three if I’m being extra considerate.

It was so backward for an Avowed’s skill to be the thing that kept them from being powerful.

What the fuck is up with that?

Alden knew a lot more about affixations now. It wasn’t enough to completely unravel this mystery, but he could make better guesses than he would have been able to before he left home.

He wasn’t born with the ability to read emotions. But he can’t turn it off. And it doesn’t wear out. It could be a passive skill that’s always on like a stat point…? No, it would have to be a weak effect compared to the amount of authority bound into it for that to work, I think, and it doesn’t sound weak at all.

So he’s been changed. It’s permanent. Brain alteration? Is it a specific upgrade to Processing? Or is it more like being open to other peoples’ emotions is now a part of Boe’s self on the existential level?

That’s…

He guessed how it had been done didn’t matter as much as the fact that it had been. Without Boe wanting it. He would never have chosen powers like that. Yet he didn’t seem particularly angry at the System or the Artonans. Alden could only ever remember there being a normal, Boe-ish amount of negativity and suspicion toward either party.

And if he had already been forced to affix prior to Alden’s own affixation…

There was nothing, thought Alden, staring blankly across the counter at the smoothie bar’s frozen yogurt machine. When I first told him I’d been chosen, he didn’t want me to talk about it over the phone, but that makes complete sense now. He’s unregistered himself, and he’s cautious about it because he doesn’t want to get deported. That’s an Earth-based problem.

And when he was encouraging me to seriously consider being unregistered and choosing a quiet class…that was an Earth-based concern, too. He didn’t want me to leave Chicago.

He wasn’t actually very negative on me being an Avowed at all.

Maybe it’s just because there’s not much choice in the matter, so why drag me down. But you’d think if he’d been forced to have painful powers that are at odds with his personality, there would be some serious bitterness and hatred toward the System.

Alden didn’t think he was so clueless that he couldn’t pick up on Boe’s feelings at all.

I must be, though. At some point—probably last year?—he was selected and had those powers dropped on him all at once. And I didn’t notice.

He tried to remember a moment when Boe might have changed. A period of particularly terrible moods, evidence of him struggling more than usual to put up with their classmates, a reluctance to spend extended periods of time with Alden…

I can’t think of anything. Am I unobservant? Have I been that bad of a friend?

Maybe if it had happened around the time Hannah went missing?

That could have been it. I guess the next question is how do I even be a good friend to an empath? Especially an empathic Boe?

Boe could get tangled up in other peoples’ emotions so badly he had to evacuate to his own personal nowhere, so…okay.

Emotional control was not Alden’s best quality these days. He had far more good moments than bad ones. But the bad moments could be intensely bad. Thankfully they mostly came at night, and he just dealt with them in the privacy of his room. But if Boe was sleeping next door, then obviously…

If he’s having a hard time and he’s exhausted the authority bound into the barrier skill, what do I do? If I’m in a regular level mood I can offer to Peace of Mind it. And if I’m in an Intensity 99.9 mood, I’ll leave.

Oh yeah, there’s also…

He pulled up the contract he’d signed with the Velras back in February. There, attached to it whether he wanted them or not, were four wordchains that weren’t available anywhere he could find on the internet. There were even videos of various pairs of hands hastily performing the associated gestures in bizarre locations. Someone had filmed their fingers swirling around with a grocery store’s meat cooler as the backdrop.

Yes, Grandchild Number Forty-Three, Alden imagined Aulia saying on a phone call. I have decided to gift Feather’s Touch to that boy Aimi manhandled. I’m sure he will love it. Perform it immediately. I don’t care if you’re standing in front of a shelf full of pork chops! Just do it!

One half of Feather’s Touch made your skin extremely sensitive. The other half would make you numb. It was nice that both halves had upsides in addition to downsides, but Alden wasn’t interested in it right now.

The only one of the four that might be helpful for dealing with emotions was…

This one. Purposefulness.

It seemed to be something that would improve your focus. So maybe you could use it to control what your attention was on if you were spinning out emotionally. Like focusing on a task instead of whatever was upsetting you? The Velras had conveniently forgotten to describe the effects for him themselves, so he had to guess based on the Artonan words in the chain.

Probably they thought I would get in touch with them for more details and help learning to do them?

Alden was curious. About the chains and why some of them were even made exclusive in the first place. But it was a resistible curiosity.

This one would be good, though. He’d shift learning it higher up on his overstuffed to-do list.

Thinking about the Velras reminded him of an annoying new problem that had to be managed. Someone was running around Anesidora who could call in your chain debt prematurely. And she was willing to do it, too.

Which meant Alden now had to consider the consequences of whatever debt he was carrying hitting him unexpectedly. The blowback from the wrong chain at the wrong moment could screw you over in a big way.

It wasn’t like he expected Hazel to be hiding around every corner waiting to snipe him. But usually people carried debt for quite a while. It wasn’t likely Alden would run into the Chainer at any given moment, but the chances of a random meeting happening over the course of days or weeks were much higher.

And Peace of Mind’s negative half is so…

[Hey,] he texted Boe, [I’m taking a little longer than I expected. Finishing up homework. I’ll be back in four hours.]

Then he headed upstairs to the spa.

He’d seen it on his first tour of the facilities. He’d admired it, just like he had the rest of North of North. But he’d never actually used a spa before, and he hadn’t expected that to change anytime soon.

It’s so fancy. He watched jellyfish drift through the aquarium wall that divided the check-in area from a lounge where Avowed in robes drank herbal tea and waited for their scheduled treatments. I wonder if I could bring Connie here or if it’s members only.

He thought he recognized several famous people, though they looked different in terrycloth and slippers than they did in their superhero get-ups. According to local gossip, more big names than usual should be around over the coming days, since a battle group was being called in to deal with one of the annual demon destruction events. There was much more news about it here on Anesidora than Alden had ever experienced at home, and he didn’t think it was just his own personal interest in what was going on that made it feel that way. Mentions of it were everywhere.

But local interest was still mostly on who would be involved and how they would get along with each other and match powers, not in how the fight would go.

A demon would appear in the offshore facility where that always happened. A select best-of-the-best group would destroy it. Nobody else would get to see anything interesting. It had happened so many times before that it wasn’t worth worrying about.

Alden did learn that the battle group spent several weeks away from their other jobs, preparing. It was something he probably should have known just because it made logical sense that you couldn’t have a mass of disparate powers clashing. But news about the demon allotment had always been such an after-the-fact blip before now that it had felt like something that lasted only a single day.

Do the Artonans even need us to kill a random demon for them or is it some training thing that the Avowed-should-be-saviors faction insists on?

If giant, powerful demons were anything like the grasshoppers then they didn’t seem like something that would be particularly shippable. He understood very little about teleportation or the System’s abilities, but he couldn’t imagine that dropping a chaos monster on a specific location was anything but hell on magical resources.

A man in one of the spa employee uniforms stepped around the aquarium and took a position behind the check-in desk. A special notification below his name tag on Alden’s interface told him that the guy was non-Avowed. It wasn’t really necessary information in his opinion. It wasn’t like superhumans went around greeting each other by swinging magic swords or exchanging deadly blows.

Maybe it’s more to explain why he has to use tech for everything, so that people don’t think he’s being rude.

That did seem likely after Alden talked to him. He read his smart watch for the translation, and nodded.

A few minutes later, Alden had his own personal relaxation room. There was a heated lounge chair. Three walls were screens that would display different landscapes if he wanted, and the fourth looked out over the meditation garden. There was a “sound therapy” playlist and a mini fridge full of drinks that looked like liquefied salads.

Seems interesting. I don’t expect to enjoy it much.

He settled into the lounge chair, took a breath, and said the sacrifice half of Peace of Mind.

Yeah, yeah, I know, he thought at the gremlin. I’m a good boy. Paying my debts right away.

Alden suspected the next three hours were going to suck, no matter how great it was to be able to pay off the debt in private, in a spa.

The thing about the bad half of Peace of Mind was that it hit above its weight. The calming half of the wordchain just settled over you and took the sharp edges away, so he was sure that its counterpart only sharpened all those same edges by an equal amount. On its end of things.

But the human brain was primed to fixate on danger and negativity, so that you’d be inspired to pay extra attention to anything that could hurt you.

In practice, it meant that one wrong, slightly too magnified bad thought could spiral into something that had less to do with the magic of the wordchain than it did with your mind and body overreacting to it. Alden had taken advantage of that to fan his own fear when he was running with Kibby.

Now, though, there were no advantages to be had—only his own heart rate elevating for no real reason and a sick feeling of dread making his stomach clench. He decided to combat it by watching Kibby’s latest batch of videos. He pulled up his current favorite.

It was full of evidence that the Quaternary’s team of wizards and Avowed were spoiling her. He tried to focus on every detail, to notice things he hadn’t the last time he watched it.

“Hello, Alden!” Kibby said, a smile brightening her whole face. “This video is about scarlet ryeh-b’t females and Stu-art’h, who is the son of the Primary and the nephew of the Quaternary, and how he named one after you. I have been thinking about whether that was funny-mean of him or not.”

She looks so relaxed.

Alden had hardly ever seen Kibby look relaxed unless she was actually asleep. It was beautiful.

She was in the travel dome’s medical area, which had been turned into her room. And it was such a wonderful child’s room. She had stuffed alien critters on her bed. Except for the size, they were all anatomically detailed and realistic. Either Artonans didn’t go for cartoonish stuffies, or Kibby herself didn’t. The toys she and her sister had played with at the lab had been similar.

In one corner, a brand new learning cushion, a short desk, and a vase full of promise sticks made a small classroom for her. There was a projection on the wall that scrolled through pictures she’d chosen. Half of them were still-frames from Alden’s video messages to her. There were a lot of close-ups of Kraaa and Rrorro, and several pictures of clouds flashing with green light. They looked innocent until you realized that they were images captured from space of the lab blowing up.

She definitely has shots of the crater she made somewhere, and she’s just saving them because she hopes I’ll ask to see her work.

“First let me show you my hair,” said Kibby, angling her head and her tablet. “Rrorro is learning braiding, but I don’t like it as much as yours.”

That is just pure favoritism for me, thought Alden. He’d learned to do the French braid for her when he realized that having her hair done made her happier. But Rrorro must have been an overachiever in all things, because the healer had gone for some advanced level basketweaving with ribbons.

I could do that now that I’ve had more auriad practice. I can totally beat Rrorro. Her species doesn’t even have hair.

Kibby popped back upright.

“Scarlet ryeh-b’ts are known for their merry natures, their large sizes, and their athleticism,” she said in an instructive tone. “So maybe the son of the Primary was not being as rude as I thought at first when you told me he had tried to replace your presence in the universe with an animal.”

She paused. “It would be better if he were not being rude. It would be unfortunate for the son of the Primary and the nephew of the Quaternary to be a rude and thoughtless person.”

My next video is clearly going to need to be in defense of Stuart. She is so judgey. I think I should have explained that Other Alden is awesome instead of just mentioning her in passing.

“You are merry, large, and athletic—”

Merry? Alden shook his head.

“And your coat was red. Perhaps Stu-art’h was being funny-mean by naming such a ryeh-b’t after you. As friends do. So it may be all right for you to talk to him socially.”

She went on discussing Stuart’s behavior and ryeh-b’ts for a while. Alden focused on noticing other things about her and the room around her. She had a rolling space heater. One of the wizards with Alis-art’h must have been doting on her, or else the Knight herself was, because Kibby was wearing one of their magic rings on a chain around her neck.

On her way to being a wizard for real. I know that must make her so proud. She’s…

Oh. He’d forgotten. There was a thought he’d been avoiding every time he watched Kibby’s videos. Not…not a terrible one. Definitely not an urgent one. But here it was, jabbing at him with those unnaturally sharpened edges.

She’s going to want to be a knight.

“That’s more than a decade in the future,” he said loudly and quickly, trying to kill it. “She’ll live a whole new life before then. She might take one look at all the plants and animals on Artona I and decide she wants to be a biologist.”

She might like her authority sense so much that the idea of doing that to herself sounds like insanity. Joe told her nobody wanted to be a knight when they actually grew up.

Joe doesn’t understand her at all.

Or maybe he’d understood a different Kibby. One whose family hadn’t died in such a hideous way while she watched.

She’ll want to do it. And they’ll probably let her.

He didn’t know how the Artonans figured out the knight candidate thing. Obviously the Rapports had some private schooling going on, at least for the children of current knights. But they must have had some way to welcome in other wizards. Most likely with open arms.

He could be completely off-base, but he really doubted there were masses of qualified volunteers being turned away.

Maybe she sucks at magic too much to be a knight.

Unlikely. After all, affixations were practically the cure for sucking at magic. Aliens sucking at magic and Artonans giving them a way to do it easy-peasy was the cornerstone of the whole Avowed/wizard relationship.

Even if there’s some elitist rule about who can be a knight that I don’t know about…Alis-art’h will just smash right through it for Kibby if she decides to.

And Alden was sure she would decide to. How could you spend months living with Kibby and not think she was the absolute best?

I don’t want it for her. I want her to do magic and be happy. I want her to go to some posh school like LeafSong and show up every last one of those wizard-raised prodigies. I want her to get her own lab one day, and I want it to be twice as big as Joe’s, and I want her to have so many friends and fun hobbies that she can’t figure out how to balance them with her deeply fulfilling work as the universe’s greatest scientist.

I don’t want her to fix chaos outbreaks. I don’t want her to face whatever “the really bad kind” of demons actually are.

I don’t want her to know what the affixation feels like.

Alden knew you couldn’t make another person’s major life choices for them. Kibby was smart. She’d get smarter. She’d know so much more by the time she had to make her decision. And she deserved to become whoever she wanted to be.

But knowing didn’t change how he felt.

And what he felt was an anxiety that was rapidly ratcheting up toward panic. And with the panic came a flood of his other greatest fear hits.

It’s only six months before I’ll start getting summoned again. Something awful could happen to me. If I don’t get stronger I could be in danger. If I do get stronger I’ll have to affix sooner. I’ll have to feel that sooner. Idon’twanttogothroughthatagain.Ican’t.

Fantastic, he thought, holding the sides of the fancy heated lounge chair so tightly his hands ached. So this is what the bad half of Peace of Mind is like for me these days. What a treat.

He forced himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth.

What if this doesn’t ever get better, and I’m fucked up forever?

That thought set off a whole new string of imagined horrors. The only good thing about them was that they were much less realistic and logical than the others, so he could distance himself from his own crazy a little more. It culminated with a fear that someone would walk into his relaxation room here, see the state he was in, and they would stuff him into Avowed jail.

Because that was obviously what the authorities did to upset teenagers.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

By the time the three hours was up, Alden was exhausted with himself. Fortunately, he was also too tired to keep going without the little extra oomph from the chain driving him.

He could tell it was over when he had his first positive thought in a while that wasn’t immediately followed by a panic spike.

Boe’s all right. I’m all right. Jeremy and Connie are fine. Kibby’s with good people, and she’s happy.

Finally, they were all accounted for.

********

Alden was still less emotionally solid than he would have liked to be when he made it back to the dorms, but Boe had texted to say his shields were fully up. It should be fine.

It was night, and the halls in The Warren were full of people decorating their doors for a spookiest apartment contest. He stopped to compliment the guys in 912. None of them were from countries where Halloween was widely celebrated, but they’d really gotten into the spirit of things and gotten hold of paint that Alden hoped was temporary.

There were dark red stains on the floor that made it look like someone had dragged a body down the hall to their apartment.

When he stepped into his own place, the first thing that hit him was the sound of the pinball machine. He shut the door quickly. Boe was leaning over the game, and behind a new pair of brown tortoise-shell frames, his eyes were fixed and focused.

“You’d better not be beating my high score.”

“I was going to,” Boe said without looking at him. “Because I thought it would be funny if you came back, and I had put the cat’s name in place of yours. But it’s not happening for me. Why are you so good at this?”

“I have hidden depths.” Alden walked over to him. “Pumpkin fro-yo? It’s the seasonal special at the gym.”

Boe abandoned the game and blinked at the cone of dark orange soft-serve. “Did you just pull ice cream out of the pocket of your pants?”

“Yogurt. They’re brand new pants. I had to buy all new workout clothes because I fled the apartment without thinking hard enough earlier.”

Boe took it from him and bit into it.

“Please note that the curl on top was perfect. Before you ate it just now.”

“Are you seriously fishing for superpower compliments?” Boe grinned. “It’s cool.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

“It’s very cool.” Boe examined him. “What kind of training are you doing at the gym? You look worn out.”

“Obstacle course running today.”

“Fun?”

“Actually yes. How’s your empathy?”

Boe’s face scrunched. “That sounds so wrong. I guess people knowing you’re an empath means they ask things like that, though? It’s safely muffled. You’re free to hate me freely if you want to.”

He said it jokingly, but Alden wondered…