EIGHTY-NINE: Hero Types

89

 

Alden’s remaining days with Boe were much too brief, and they threw into stark relief one inconvenient fact about his new life.

“I can’t get approval to go back home for Christmas or New Year,” he told his friend on Wednesday night, slamming the door to his bedroom and stalking into the kitchen. “All the requests I put in this morning were denied. I got the notices while I was in the shower.”

“Well…” Boe glanced up from his perusal of the enormous stack of coupons Alden had received when he first entered intake. “We thought it would be that way.”

“I can’t go back next Christmas either.” Alden yanked open the fridge and glared at an innocent bottle of green tea. “The U.S. approves Avowed for visits up to eighteen months in advance, and the slots for major holidays for anyone C-rank and above fill the day they’re opened. I have eleven days off between school quarters then. You know what else I can’t do with that time?”

“Get approval to have guests here on Anesidora?” Boe suggested.

“That’s right! Because Anesidora allows us to schedule visitors two years in advance. And the special occasion slots here fill up the second they’re opened, too. So maybe, if I’m lucky enough to not be on a summons on sign-up day this year, I can have a holiday with my family or friends, when I’m in college.”

“February is probably good, right? Or March.”

Alden grabbed a container of acorn squash soup. “Yes. It’s manageable. Weekends get booked up fast. I guess I just have to skip school if I actually want to use the fourteen days of family time the U.S. allows me each year. But the local hero team in Chicago will also ask my school how I’m doing before they grant my approval, to make sure I’m a good boy who won’t hurt regular humans while I’m under their jurisdiction. So I can’t just skip class. I have to get permission from the school, then get permission from the country I was born in, then get permission from the hero team in charge of monitoring me and sign a paper saying I understand they will arrest me if I so much as magically sneeze or step outside the city limits.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m sure the process is really streamlined. It sounds like a lot, but it’s probably computers putting checkmarks beside your name all along the way.”

“They’re treating me like I’ve done something bad. But I haven’t. And that fact makes me want to do something bad.”

Alden shoved a spoon into the soup without bothering to heat it.

Boe raised his eyebrows. “What kind of a villain phase will it be then?”

“Something heinous,” Alden muttered, shoveling soup into his mouth.

“How heinous?”

“I’ll…”

The silence stretched between them. Boe started to snicker.

“Shut up. I’m thinking of things.”

“You literally can’t think of anything bad to do!”

“I can! I’m trying to think of something bad that involves my powers, though. My skill requires people to entrust me with things. So my evil has to have an accomplice.”

Boe rested his elbows on the counter and steepled his fingers. “I will be your minion. You’re welcome.”

Alden pointed the spoon at him. “I can’t have a minion who outranks me. Everyone will think you’re the one in charge.”

“Since you can’t even think of crimes to do on your own…”

“I’ll throw Haunting Spheres into movie theaters and make them yell.”

“Petrifying.”

Alden sighed. “I actually can think of a few terrible things, but they’re a little too terrible for me to joke about them. I wanted to be funny with some middle ground crime. Something between pranking moviegoers and decapitating cyclists with fishing line.”

“The evil oozes from you.” Boe pushed aside the stack of coupons. “Seriously though. I’m sorry. It sucks they make you jump through so many hoops to visit.”

“Do you know there’s pushback here on Anesidora about allowing more guests, too? It’s purely an insular locals thing. They don’t like ‘tourists’ even though practically the only tourists here are the family members of first generation Avowed. It’s not even close to a majority opinion, but still…”

“Wish you were unregistered, too?” Boe asked.

Alden winced. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But I’d have other stresses then. I mostly wish you weren’t going back home.”

It was different with Boe. Alden didn’t want to dump his baggage on Connie or Jeremy. He didn’t want to with Boe either, but…he could. Or he had been able to. They were putting a moratorium on ‘sharing Earth-shattering secrets’ at Boe’s insistence, until Alden could figure out how to magically bind them with his own version of the Triangle of Absolute Secrecy.

On Alden’s end of things, there wasn’t much left to tell anyway. He couldn’t talk about Bearer, and the cat was already out of the bag on his budding wizardry.

He wasn’t going to give anyone details about the knights. He didn’t know what combination of politics, personal reasons, and culture made them want to keep exactly what they were private. But they did. And he understood it himself on a gut level.

Boe knew Stuart was the son of that really important Primary guy Alden had met at the party. Which was all Alden had known himself a few months ago. It was fine.

The only thing he really had left that he wanted to share was the existence of his fake profile and his actual level…but the Contract lying about your powers to the Artonans was just about the most earth-shattering news he could think of. Even bigger than him being able to cast spells now.

It could wait until he figured out contract magic.

Someone pressed the buzzer on the apartment and shouted, “Trick-or-treat!” through the panel.

Boe looked at door. “Are you supposed to be passing out candy tonight?”

“A lot of people are. I didn’t even decorate my door, so that person’s hoping for a bit much. Don’t worry. It’s locked, and they’re used to me skipping out on social events.”

Boe’s fingers went back to their steepled position. “In that case, let’s talk about that disturbing text you sent me in the middle of the day.”

“What disturbing text?”

“A quote: ‘I think I really ought to do something more serious about Manon and the boater. What do you think about me confronting her directly?’”

“Oh. That’s no big deal.”

Alden just…hadn’t been able to put it out of his mind since he saw Karl.

“I was in Engaging with the Unexpected. We were talking about what goodness is again.”

“And your answer today is vigilantism?” Boe asked in a flat voice. “Because I seem to remember you saying that an actual Sway superhero told you there was no legal way to handle the problem.”

“Of course not. I’ve… She’s a cult leader who lightly mind controls her ‘friends’ and uses them like breakable dolls. And I know about it. So I have to do something for them. My original idea of sending them messages wasn’t really enough either, was it? And it probably wouldn’t even work. I don’t want to cause a huge mess, but I should do more than that. I could tell Manon herself I know what she’s doing. I could—”

“Do you actually want to save the boater? Or are you feeling an urge to fuck with Manon because she indirectly fucked with you and got people killed? Or is it something far dumber than either of those things?”

“I told you I’m over my dark desire to see Manon punished. I want to help the boater people”

“Alden,” he said tiredly.

Alden shrugged and took another bite of his soup. “Their dynamic with Manon is strange. I don’t know which of them really needs an out and which of them might be a willing participant in whatever it is she’s doing. But she magically nudged a woman into busting up her leg and then kept her from getting help for it until it was so swollen she couldn’t walk on it properly. So at least one member of the collective couldn’t possibly be on board.”

“And?” said Boe.

“And…it’s awful that I’ve been here for two months without even trying to help. It’s shitty.”

Boe pressed his face to the counter and clutched his hands together behind his head.

What’s with the drama? Alden thought with annoyance.

“I am not a therapist,” Boe said in a muffled voice. “But at the risk of seriously pissing you off, I am going to tell you something about yourself that I’m sure you don’t want to hear.”

“If you’re going to say I’m lying about the revenge, I’m not,” said Alden. “I—”

“It’s not that. And I’m not reading you right now. But I have in the past, and I have very recently. So I know what I’m about to say is true. And I think even though hearing it said aloud is going to make you unhappy, in the long run, it might keep you from getting stuck on moons.”

“Well, I’m all for that not happening…”

Alden felt nervous suddenly. Boe could say devastating things when he was angry. He didn’t seem very angry right now, but Alden doubted that gaining the ability to read emotions had softened his edges.

Boe looked up at him. “Some people are deeply compassionate toward their fellow man,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s nature, nurture, or habit; but they actually want to help total strangers. They care about every single person who crosses their path. They’re as close to being pure givers as humans can be. They’re special. The world would be utopian if everyone was like that.”

Alden nodded slowly.

“There’s another type of person,” Boe continued, not taking his eyes off Alden’s face, “who runs around doing good, not out of world-hugging compassion, but because being a do-gooder gives them energy. If I’m being ungracious, I’d say it’s selfishness and ego stroking, but that’s selling them short. It’s more like helping out is their identity. For whatever reason, it’s part of how they see themselves and their place in relation to others. Running to save someone else psychs them up and makes them fulfilled and confident. They feel amazing when they do the right thing. I suppose that’s pretty special in its own way.”

Alden set aside what was left of his soup. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Let’s call those people Hero Type 1 and Hero Type 2.” Boe held up two fingers, then he added bluntly, “You’re not either type. You really wish you were. You try so fucking hard to fit both of the molds. But you never have been a natural humanitarian or someone who gets high on his own righteousness, and you’re not even close to getting there.”

“Thanks,” Alden said sourly. “I think I’ve made it clear in multiple ways recently that this is something I’ve noticed about myself.”

“Yes, but for some reason, it bothers you. You think it’s a personal failing.”

“Isn’t it one?”

Boe stood up and slapped the counter. “No! You have got to stop being ashamed of not being the merry, self-sacrificing savior figure you have in your head! The things you said about yourself in some of your voicemails…. Stop feeling disappointed in yourself for not enjoying running on broken bones in some kind of one-man alien death marathon. Nobody normal fucking would!”

“I know that!”

“Then why are you so, so upset about not wanting to do something like that again?! Alden, it’s not healthy. Why do you feel guilty? Why do you feel guilty? Of all people! You saved someone’s life. More than one person, I’m guessing, if I read between the lines of that dorky berry-picking story. If you lounge around in bed for the next hundred years, you’ve already done it. You can quit now, and nobody who has more than a single braincell will ever think you haven’t earned it.”

“I almost left her.”

“Who?”

“Kibby!” Alden shouted. “Before I knew her. On the first day, when it was all going wrong and everyone was dying. I heard her whistling for help. In the grass. And I knew it was probably one of the little girls trying to get my attention, and I knew something horrible must have happened to her, and I just stood there for a while. Because I didn’t want to deal with a problem that hard!”

“But you did deal with it. You dealt with it for months!”

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“I left her sitting in the car with the corpses of her family while I felt sorry for myself,” Alden spat.

Boe took a deep breath. His next words were soft. “The standard you hold yourself to scares me. I am so afraid that as soon as you’re not completely drained by everything you’ve been through, the unnecessary shame you feel is going to get you killed for real this time.”

Alden’s urge to argue left him at that. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“You just suggested directly confronting someone you know is a mind controller, so forgive me if I don’t believe you!”

Alden held his hands out and gave his friend his best, I can’t help what you believe, look.

Boe pointed at him. “You’ve lost my trust. All it took was some self-righteous moron saying the word ‘goodness’ in a high school class for you to have a guilt fest—about not flinging yourself into danger to save the fucking boater people. They’re a bunch of adults who’ve gotten into a messy situation on their own, and they were assholes to you on top of it. You don’t really care about them!”

“But I should,” Alden argued. “And if I can’t, I should at least act like I do.”

“What logic is there in forcing yourself to feel obligated to every single person you run across? I can’t believe you’re so—gah!”

Boe threw a fistful of coupons at him.

Alden stepped back in surprise as paper fluttered around him like leaves.

“I’m going to get this crammed through your thick skull, or I’m not leaving the island on Saturday. I will literally turn myself in and stay right here for the rest of my life to watch you and make sure you don’t throw yourself away again!”

“I do understand what you mean,” Alden said, alarmed. “I didn’t intend to freak you out with the text. There’s no reason—”

“No. You don’t understand, or you wouldn’t be talking about yourself this way! Clearly, I am a bad explainer. Let me try again! Alden, stop wishing you were like Hannah Elber. Please.”

Alden plucked a coupon for fifteen percent off parasailing out of his hair. He stared across the counter. Boe looked so serious.

“I don’t think I’ve been wishing that exactly…”

“I never met her,” Boe said. “But I’ve heard you talk about her. You admire her so much, and you describe her like she was a holy workaholic combo of Hero Types 1 & 2. Maybe she was, or maybe that was just how she chose to present herself to you. Either way—damn. Nobody is ever going to hit that mark through any amount of effort. Not even you. You can’t make yourself feel warm fuzzies for all mankind. You can’t just get stoked about being the person who pulls others out of burning buildings when you were born with the common sense to be afraid of fire.”

“Hey, you could make me feel those things!” Alden said. “Problem solved.”